This Same Rain That Draws You Near Me
by Dramatricks
Summary: AU. When Quinn meets Rachel Berry at college in New York, sparks fly. But Quinn has a secret, a secret that could hurt Rachel and destroy the life Quinn has worked so hard to preserve. Side Brittana.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This story deals with mature subject matter. Subjects addressed are dissociative identity disorder, (non-graphic) abuse, and attempted suicide. Please read at your own discretion. **

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She liked days when it rained the most.

Any other person, she figured, would be mad when they discovered that they had forgotten their umbrella in preparation for the four-block walk to their apartment in the rain, but as she did with everything in life so far, she just squared her shoulders and stepped outside. A couple of people looked at her as if she were insane for lazily strolling along the sidewalk like it was a mild day in October instead of a torrential downpour in June. Most of them, though, didn't spare her a second glance; New York was like that in its penchant for ignoring everyone, and that was the way _she_ liked it.

She ran a hand through her black hair, slicking it back off her forehead; the cigarette in her left hand lasted for two puffs before it was too soaked to be valuable. She discarded it in the bin in front of a store, then paused to glance at her reflection in the window. Dark, tired eyes stared back at her; she'd had an 8 a.m. class then four hours for the after-lunch rush at the clinic. In the glass her tan skin melted and swam in rivulets, a funhouse mirror of eyes framed by long, black lashes, hair that was plastered against her neck and shoulders, purple scrubs decorated with Cookie Monster (because the kids at the clinic loved him, which made her boss love _her_) clinging to every curve like static.

Thunder rolled, and she swore under her breath. Gone was the lazy stroll, replaced by harried steps; she became a true New Yorker, shoving people out of the way as she nearly sprinted the last two blocks towards the crappy apartment with its lousy heating system and barely working plumbing that she had lived in for the last two years.

Ordinarily, she loved thunderstorms. There was something about the power of the earth and sky, revealing itself in light and sound and feel, and if she was feeling particularly poetic (which she usually _wasn't_, firmly believing poets were just wusses who couldn't say how they felt in _normal_ words) she'd call it majestic. She loved to be outside in a drizzle, or a smooth, steady rain that fell on her like baptism; during a thunderstorm, though, she loved to be inside on the couch, a cup of the blackest coffee she could make in her hand, with crappy MSN documentaries on the television. She could settle into the plush, soft cushions of the couch with her gaze half on the television, half on the other side of the room, watching the other girl who lived in the apartment with her.

This other girl was the reason that Santana Lopez raced into her building and took the stairs two at a time until she reached the floor of her apartment. Her hands were wet and she fumbled, dropping the key twice as she swore under her breath, until finally she was able to unlock the door and step aside.

"Hey," she called out tentatively, rooted to the rug in front of the door, water coursing off of her.

"I'm home?" She was met with silence.

A quick survey of the living room told her all she needed to know.

A half-eaten plate of chicken carbonara (extra bacon) from Dante's sat on the coffee table, a nearly empty glass of iced tea next to it. On the left side of the plate were a stack of books, novels that the other girl needed to read for her American literature class. On the right, in stark contrast, was a box of 64-crayons, each one of them worn down and clearly used, and a coloring book haphazardly open to a page that was partially filled. Santana smiled briefly down at it, noting how each stroke of the crayon had been even and smooth, staying inside the clearly-defined black lines of the picture. The lines had been traced over with black crayon, as if the artist had been afraid to stray any further. The television was loud with SpongeBob and Patrick annoying Squidward; Santana reached for the remote and flipped it off, just as a particularly loud roar of thunder crashed through the apartment. As it died off, she caught the thin, muffled squeak, and she sighed.

Standing in the middle of the living room, Santana realized just how cold she had gotten, because the last couple of days the heat had been searing, so the air conditioner was still on full blast. She crossed the floor to the hall, sparing only a glance at the closet and noting that it was cracked open a few inches. Once inside her bedroom she stripped off her wet layers and walked naked into the bathroom. Usually, she'd just dry off and put her clothes on, but she was chilled and tired, and a shower sounded like a _really_ good idea.

The heated water flowed over her and she leaned her head against the glass door, once again watching her reflection slip steadily down the drain. Santana took a couple steadying, deep breaths and shook her head.

Twenty years old was far too young to feel this fucking _old_.

She didn't bother putting clothes on after the shower; she grabbed a pair of underwear out of her drawer and pulled on a bathrobe, padding barefoot down the hall once again. This time, she stopped in front of the hall closet door and tucked three fingers in the crack, pulling it open slowly and kneeling down, sitting on her heels.

The girl looked up at her with frightened eyes, from her position curled up on the floor with her thumb in her mouth.

Santana reached out slowly, watching for a flinch. Seeing none, she tucked an errant strand of honey blonde hair out of the girl's face and behind her ear.

"Hey, there," she said, brightly and gently. The girl didn't respond, so Santana settled for placing her hand on her back, stroking over the yellow fabric of her dress.

"I'm going to make hamburgers and mac and cheese for dinner," she said. "Would you like that?"

Her sister nodded, then whimpered, curling further into herself, as it thundered outside.

"Okay," Santana said. "You want to stay in here until after the storm is over?"

She already knew the answer. That didn't stop her from asking, hoping every time that the answer would be different.

The blonde girl at her feet nodded.

"Okay." Santana scooted forward slightly, leaning down to brush a kiss on her sister's forehead. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

It was her sister's turn to fix dinner, actually, but Santana knew that wouldn't be happening, not while the thunder was rattling the windows every 5 minutes and the apartment was eerily illuminated each time the lightning crashed. But it didn't matter.

After four years, Santana was used to it.

So she busied herself in their too-small kitchen, trying to keep everything neat and in order as she worked, because there was barely enough room to move around, much less make a mess. She cracked open a beer and let the slow burn wash down her throat as she cooked, wrinkling her nose at the smell that would linger for hours in the lousy ventilation. But it was her sister's favorite meal on nights like this, so, really, what was Santana going to do?

It was only after she had plated her food and her sister's, sitting alone at the kitchen table with an empty space across from her that Santana realized the storm had stopped. It was already eight p.m. and the sky was just darkening, the sun's rays lightly pinking over the horizon before disappearing completely.

The soft sound of a throat clearing startled her, and Santana glanced up.

Her sister smiled at her with focused eyes, and Santana smiled back. The blonde girl carried the plate of pasta to the counter and pulled out a plastic container, scooping the contents into it and putting it into the refrigerator. Moving back to sit across from Santana, she rested her cheek on her palm and picked at the macaroni and cheese in front of her.

Santana took another long drag of her beer before leaning back in her chair, carefully maintaining enough balance to reach into the fridge and grab another.

"Hey," she greeted her sister. "Welcome back."

There was a pause as her sister stared at her.

"Hey," Quinn finally said.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story deals with mature subject matter. Subjects addressed are dissociative identity disorder, (non-graphic) abuse, and attempted suicide. Please read at your own discretion. **

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"John Milton once wrote," Dr. Alan said, looking out at the class over the rims of his glasses, "that 'the mind can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven.' Who can explain the meaning of this statement, and the significance it has on how we, as readers, approach a poem?"

Before he had even finished speaking, the hand had shot up. The hand that rose every time the professor asked a question. The hand that belonged to the girl in the front row, dead center. The girl with dark brown curly hair, an obnoxiously loud voice, and a distinct lack of height.

Quinn sighed and rested her cheek on her hand, glancing towards the world outside and tuning out the animated voice that was now talking a mile a minute. It had rained earlier; she'd woken up before dawn broke, as soon as the first drops had hit her windowpane and she'd felt herself tense. But the thunder and lightning had mercifully stayed in the heavens, and now the sun was shining. She longed to be out in it again, and soon the voice that was speaking so insistently had faded into an annoying buzz in her ears.

The attendance sheet found her way in front of her, and Quinn quickly scrawled her signature next to her place on the roster before passing it on to the guy seated next to her.

Quinn C. Lopez

The mind, she thought idly, fingers drumming soundlessly on the open poetry book in front of her, pages full of Milton and terms like "peculiar diction," "irregular rhythm," and "inversion of the natural order of words and phrases."

_Inversion of the natural order._

If her life were a poem, Quinn considered romantically, that phrase would be an accurate description of her own mind. A perfect explanation for why, every time the weather outside took a turn for the worse, she would "wake up" on the floor of the hall closet, her thumb wet and wrinkled with saliva and indentations of front teeth.

But her life wasn't a poem, and if the explanation still remained somewhat mystical in the medical and psychological worlds, the terms were far more scientific.

Dissociative. Switching. Alters.

Dr. Alan's voice brought Quinn back into focus.

"Thank you," she heard him say drily to the girl, who had _thankfully_, _finally_ quit speaking. "You've made a fair and valid assessment, but please, next time, wait until you are called upon before launching into such an involved response."

She smirked, the upturn tick of her lips growing wider into a grin as the girl at the front of the class actually _huffed_ her indignation, folding her arms across her chest like a petulant five year old. Then it was time for Dr. Alan to pass out the graded exams from last week, and Quinn noted with no small amount of pride that she'd gotten a hundred. Again.

"Don't forget," he called as Quinn stood up and stowed her books in her messenger bag, shouldering it, "Come to class next week ready to accept your pairing for the presentation assignment."

The class responded with a collective grumble, echoing how Quinn felt. She hated group assignments, but all that floated away as she walked down the hall, stepped outside, and lifted her face to the sky, letting the warmth of the sun wash over her.

God, she _loathed_ rain.

She loved days like this, sunny and peaceful, when she could stroll the blocks from campus back to the apartment, lazy and slow. By the time she'd make it home her clothes would be wet with sweat and sticking to her, honey blonde hair plastered to her eyelids and making vision hazy… but she didn't care. On days like today, she didn't have to obsessively check the weather report on her iPhone, calculating at what time she needed to be safe inside four walls before _it_ happened. She could walk along and window shop, smile at babies in strollers, take off her shoes and cut through the park, feeling the grass bite against her toes.

On days like today, Quinn Lopez was free. And after twelve years, freedom had come to mean everything, because she had so very little of it.

The first time it happened (well, that she remembered), she was eight years old.

"_Forecast for this evening calls for more of the same – thunderstorms and a rain accumulation of two inches or more while Hurricane Ida makes its way across land. Expect heavy rain, lots of hail, and the power company is already warning that there may be some significant outages as the weather continues to worsen."_

_It took her five tries to pick up her crayon before Quinn realized that her hands were trembling. A set of small tan fingers reached over and plucked the blue one from the box, pressing it into Quinn's palm, before Santana's concentration returned to her own picture, a small pink tongue darting out of her mouth as she focused._

_Quinn smiled but it disappeared as a particularly loud clap of thunder reverberated through the house, rattling the windows and the china in Mama's cabinet._

_After that… everything got a little hazy, until Santana's voice spoke to her._

"_Quinn?"_

_The house was silent. Her back hurt, and everything was dark, except for a small sliver of light. Quinn glanced up and saw Santana standing above her, hands tucked into her shorts pockets and looking down at her with a strange expression on her face._

_That's when Quinn realized._

_She was on the floor, inside the closet of her sister's bedroom._

_She swallowed hard around the thumb in her mouth, then pulled it away and glanced at the indentations her teeth had made._

_Santana pulled the door open wider and sat down next to her. Those same tan fingers were in Quinn's hair now, brushing sweaty tendrils away from her eyes._

"_You were scared, weren't you?"_

_Quinn nodded. She _was_ scared. But she didn't think it was the storm anymore._

She learned when she was sixteen that the idea of humans using only 10 percent of their brain was a myth. Now that she was twenty, Quinn was pretty sure her brain was 90% fucked up. Dr. Jones had laughed the first time Quinn had said that, but her smile had disappeared when she'd realized that her client was dead serious.

"_I'm broken," she said with a shrug._

_Dr. Jones' pen hesitated, poised over her notepad. "Why would you say that?"_

_Quinn shrugged again. "What would you call it? Broken, damaged, fucked up… My brain is Swiss cheese."_

_Her therapist quirked an eyebrow at her. "Is that an official diagnosis?" she asked mildly, but she was smiling, letting Quinn know she was joking while at the same time taking her seriously._

_Quinn glared at her. "I have two… _people_ living inside my head that are not me. What would you call it?"_

_Dr. Jones leaned forward and met Quinn's gaze. "I think that's where you're wrong. They _are_ you."_

She reached the park in record time, even though she was taking what could probably be called a leisurely stroll through the city, in no real hurry to get home. She sat down on a bench and rested her head against its back, sighing into the sun.

There were days when it wasn't bad. She was only taking 2 classes at NYU – American literature and poetry and poetics, but some days even that seemed to be too much. But others were calm, casual; some days she could almost forget that there was a constant battle in her mind, raging just underneath the surface. She could remember that she was a college student in New York City: prone to not studying when she should but still making As; totally obsessed with caramel macchiatos from the Starbucks down the street; and with an unhealthy love for horror movies that was probably more Santana's fault than her own. She wanted bacon with everything – including ice cream, which had made Santana turn a lovely shade of green before she'd excused herself from the table. She was insecure about her looks sometimes, and bemoaned the fact that she would never have enough money for a pair of Manolo Blahniks.

Quinn Celeste Lopez was your typical, every day college student.

Who sometimes lost entire chunks of days from her memory.

Days where she felt like a ghost, standing outside her body as she watched herself… do things. Most times she really didn't _remember_; things just floated in and out of her consciousness like snippets of a film reel: the roughness of the carpet on the floor of the closet scratching against her cheek; cartoons loud and frantic on the television; Santana's eyes, wide and brown and worried, like they always were, like they had been for the last 12 years. There were other things that were harder to remember, things that she was pretty sure she was glad that stayed in the farthest recesses of her mind.

Weight and heat and the saltiness of beer, steady thump of music in a club. A boy, tall and dark and _too fucking close_, shock registering on his face as he stumbled across the floor and up against the wall, in disbelief that a little blonde girl who weighed 120 pounds soaking wet now had his friends laughing their asses off at him.

And always, always there was the warmth of Santana's hand in hers, the smell of cigarette smoke and the sound of Santana's frustrated breathing wafting around their heads in the darkness of two a.m., as Quinn's sister led her home without a word. Sometimes Quinn realized where she was as soon as her head hit the pillows, and she managed a soft "Thanks," causing Santana to just grin gently at her.

Most nights, though, she wouldn't remember any of it until dawn peeked its rays into her bedroom.

And even then, it was just little snatches of memory, like a crossword puzzle with not enough clues.

Quinn opened her eyes when something knocked against her foot; she glanced down as the little boy seized up his soccer ball and shot her a blinding smile before running off to rejoin his friends. She grinned softly, watching as they started up a game absent of any rules and any real goals, just a group of kids running around and laughing. They were probably around seven, she surmised.

The age she'd been, the night she entered into the Lopez household, with one hand in that of a detached social worker, and the other clinging tightly to a teddy bear.

_Her legs dangled off the edge of the cot as Quinn Fabray sat up and looked around._

_The lady police officer had stayed with her, holding her hand and whispering soothing things to her while also talking to the doctor who had really cold hands. But she had slipped out for a drink of water, and now Quinn was alone._

_She whimpered and hugged her arms tightly to herself, squeezing her eyes against the tears._

_The door creaked and someone wearing a blue suit, a man, came inside the room, holding a stuffed toy in his hands._

"_Hi, there," he said pleasantly. He sat on the little rolling stool and scooted closer to Quinn, who scrambled backwards to the middle of the cot._

_The strange man nodded at her, his lips tightening in sympathy. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out something and opened it, holding it out to her. The gold badge glinted and shone in the harsh overhead lights of the hospital room._

"_You want to hold it?" he said, his voice kind and even. She glanced up at him and chewed her lower lip. "It's okay, sweetheart, you can hold it if you want to."_

_Quinn reached out and fisted her tiny fingers around the badge, looking at it. She shuffled forward again, ignoring the ache of her bottom and the back of her legs, and kept glancing from the badge to the man in the blue suit._

"_Never talk to the police, Quinnie," Daddy said. "They'll take you away from us, pretty girl. You don't want to be a bad girl and get daddy in trouble, do you?"_

_She was a bad girl… but he just seemed so _nice_._

_As she ran her fingers along the dips and curves of the badge, lips mouthing "two oh seven," the man spoke again._

"_Would you like a present?"_

_Quinn's eyes shot up and she stared at him in fear._

_Daddy always gave her presents._

_She didn't _want_ a present._

_It was almost as if the man knew this, because he brought the teddy bear closer, sitting it on his knee and making it wave at Quinn. She giggled a little in spite of herself, and he smiled._

"_You can have it, sweetheart," he said. "We always give little girls teddy bears for being so brave."_

_She tilted her head at him, brow furrowed._

_She was brave?_

_The man held the teddy bear out to her._

"_I think he likes you," he said with a smile. "I think he'd like to help make you feel better."_

_She hesitated, but one hand was already holding the badge out to him while her other was reaching for the teddy bear. Fingers closed around softness, and she brought the bear to her chest, hugging it close._

_The man patted her knee, briefly, then tucked his badge back into his pocket and continued to watch her, sadness in his eyes. They were blue, she noticed. Like mommy's._

_Where was mommy? Why wasn't she here? Did she think Quinn was a bad girl, too?_

"_What's your name?" Quinn asked in a tiny voice._

_The man seemed surprised, and he cleared his throat. "Colley," he said quietly. "My name is Detective Colley."_

_Quinn nodded, the teddy bear tucked under her chin, and she buried her face in its soft fur as the tears flowed._

"_Colley," she murmured. "My Colley."_

Quinn stood and brushed off her jeans, shouldering her messenger bag once more and again setting off for home. From the park it was a less than five minute walk, and she was hungry, so she quickened her pace and didn't slow until she turned the key in the lock.

"Hey?" she called out.

"Yo," was the response, and she smiled.

Santana was sitting on the couch tipping back a beer. She had somehow managed to score a fake ID somewhere, much to Quinn's chagrin… but then again she had one in her wallet as well. Her sister's eyes, framed in black wire-rimmed reading glasses, were drifting back and forth from the news on the television and her statistics book, open in front of her on the coffee table.

Quinn walked down the hall to her room and stowed her bag underneath her desk before slipping out of her shoes and changing into a pair of Santana's old William McKinley High School cheerleading sweats and a tee-shirt from NYU. Coming back into the living room and flopping down on the couch, she nudged the Latina with her shoulder.

"How's it going, big sis?"

"Two months, Q," Santana muttered, chewing absently on her pen as she stared down at her textbook. "Big sis by two whole months. Let it go."

"Nope," Quinn shook her head. "I'll never forgive you for being badass for a whole two months before me."

Santana smirked. "It's a talent, babe. Some of us have it, some of us…" She glanced over, surveying her sister meaningfully. "_Clearly_ don't."

Quinn rolled her eyes and bumped her shoulder with Santana's again. "Want me to fix dinner tonight, since I couldn't last night?"

Santana shrugged, still focusing on a stats problem, and swearing under her breath at it. "Your call. You up for it?"

It was only four words, but Quinn knew it was Santana's usual way of asking so much.

_Are you okay? How'd your day go? Did you switch? Do I need to kick anyone's ass?_

(Because if there was something Santana was always up for, it was kicking someone's ass.)

"I'm up for it," Quinn answered, resting her head briefly on Santana's shoulder.

The Latina responded by lightly kissing the crown of her blonde curls.

"Then what the hell are you waiting for? I'm fucking starved."

Quinn rolled her eyes again and stood up, making her way to the kitchen. "Chicken and rice all right?"

Santana waved her hand in absent agreement, muttering softly to herself again as she still studied her book.

Quinn smiled as she pulled the ingredients out of the cupboard and fridge, balancing everything in her arms as she thought about the last twelve years living with the tornado that was Santana Lopez. More than once she and Santana had been confused for girlfriends, owing to the tan skin and dark hair contrasted against the pale blonde. This had only resulted in Santana and Quinn collapsing into each other with giggles each time, because, as Santana said, "I love you, Q, but yuck."

It was a curious dynamic, one that had been in place since Quinn was seven and had stepped out of a black car with a government license plate.

_The social worker's name was Andrea, she had told Quinn. The little girl had just nodded and allowed the woman to buckle her into the booster in the back seat. She clutched her arms tightly around Colley and tried not to look at the small bag that held some of her clothes._

_She missed her mommy. Why wasn't mommy coming to get her, to take her home?_

_She needed to hug daddy, to tell her she was sorry for being a bad girl._

_She knew daddy would be mad. He would spank her. But she wanted to go home._

_Home to her pink room. Her soft bed with the pink lacy ruffles, the rows upon rows of dolls and fancy china figurines that daddy wouldn't let her touch. Bare pink walls, decorated only with a big picture of Jesus above her bed._

_Jesus didn't like bad girls, either._

_Quinn would have started to cry, but she was distracted by Andrea speaking softly to someone on the phone as she navigated the car through the dark Lima streets. The little girl watching her strained to hear, but the social worker's voice was too low._

_The car ride seemed to take a long time, and Quinn realized she had to go to the bathroom. She crossed her legs and squirmed a little, whimpering. Andrea glanced at her in the rearview mirror and smiled._

"_Almost there, sweetheart," she said easily. "Just hang on."_

_And only thirty seconds later, Quinn felt the car turn and then stop. Andrea turned off the car and stepped out, coming around to open the back passenger door. She smiled reassuringly down at Quinn, unbuckled the seatbelt, and lifted the little girl off the booster._

_Quinn wavered when her feet touched the cement of the sidewalk in front of the large yellow house. It wasn't as big as _her_ house, but it was pretty, she thought, and all the lights were on. A woman was waiting on the front porch and Quinn squeezed Colley bear tighter, one thumb finding its way into her mouth._

_Andrea took her hand and held it gently, Quinn's little "Going to Grandma's" suitcase in her other hand as they walked up the sidewalk towards the house. The lady on the front porch had darker skin than Quinn, she noticed, and her black hair was pulled into a pony tail. Her brown eyes were sparkling kindly though, and Quinn realized she liked her._

_She stopped when Andrea did, little Mary Jane-clad feet scuffling against the wood floor of the porch. She stared at the lace around her ankles as Andrea spoke._

"_Mrs. Lopez, I'm sorry to be here on such short notice."_

"_It's fine," the other woman – Mrs. Lopez? – said, and her voice was gentle. "Sometimes little girls can't wait, can they?" There was a shuffling, and Quinn backed up when she found herself suddenly face to face with Mrs. Lopez._

"_What's your name?" she asked, smiling at her._

_Quinn looked up at Andrea, who nodded encouragingly._

_She took her thumb out of her mouth. "Quinn Celeste Fabray," she recited, just like mommy had taught her._

_Mrs. Lopez stood up and took her hand. "Well, Quinn, you're going to stay with us for a little while, okay?"_

"_I can't go home?" Quinn squeaked, eyes wide._

_Mrs. Lopez's stared down at her with a sad look on her face, like Detective Colley's. She shook her head._

"_Not right now, honey."_

"_But I wanna go home!" Quinn dug her heels into the porch floor when Mrs. Lopez tried to walk her inside the house. "I want my daddy! Mommy!"_

"_Is she going to cry like this all the time?"_

_The voice startled her, and Quinn stared at the little girl in the doorway, framed by the light coming from inside the house._

"_Santana," Mrs. Lopez scolded, "Be nice. Go back inside until I call you."_

_She was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, a ketchup stain on the front. Her black hair was swept back from her face and fell in soft waves over her shoulders. She stared at Santana with dark eyes._

"_You don't have to be afraid, you know," she said with a shrug. "We don't bite. Well, except for Miguel, but he's a year old, and he doesn't really have teeth so it doesn't hurt anyway."_

"_Santana!" Mrs. Lopez said, sighing with exasperation at her daughter while Andrea just laughed._

_Santana pursed her lips and moved to go back inside the house, when Quinn spoke up._

"_I need to use the bathroom."_

"_Hey, this one's potty trained, Mama."_

"_Santana Maria Lopez! Take Quinn inside and show her to the bathroom, before I take your Game Boy away. Now!"_

"_Fine," the little girl dragged out slowly, then reached out her hand and took Quinn's, tugging her._

_Quinn glanced back at the two women. Sensing her fear, Mrs. Lopez squatted down and put a hand on her shoulder._

"_It's okay to be scared," she said quietly. "But you're going to be all right. Santana will help take care of you, won't you, Santana?" She looked pointedly at her daughter._

_Santana glanced at her mother, then at the frightened little girl who stood next to her wearing a light yellow sundress and lacy ankle socks with white patented leather shoes._

_She nodded. "Yeah," she said, and drew herself up as tall as she could, speaking proudly with her chin jutted in the air._

"_I'll take care of you."_

The dinner finished, Quinn made up two plates and carried them both into the living room, setting Santana's on top of her textbook.

"I have to finish this problem," she grunted.

"You have to eat," Quinn countered, sitting next to her and handing Santana a fork.

"Yes, wifey."

"Ew. I mean, I know I'm hot, but ew."

"You wish you were as hot as this."

"Eat your damn dinner."

Santana smirked and pulled off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose before sighing and picking up her plate, propping her feet against the coffee table.

"You work too hard," Quinn said softly, feeling the old twinge of guilt prick her somewhere deep inside.

She hadn't been able to hold down a job. Santana had worked two, at the clinic and then at the Starbucks down the street on the weekends, plus carrying a full 15-hour load of classes at NYU, until her grades had started to suffer and their parents had forced her to quit one of the jobs. She'd stuck with the clinic, since she was studying to be a pediatric nurse anyway.

"Don't start," Santana said around a mouthful of chicken. She got up to grab two bottles of water from the fridge, handing Quinn one as she sat down again.

"I just wish I could—"

"Yeah, well, you can't." There was no malice in Santana's voice, just the same casual matter-of-fact way of speaking to Quinn that she'd cultivated since they were seven years old.

_Once Quinn was finished in the bathroom, she washed her hands and wiped them on the towel, then opened the door to the bathroom. She jumped a little, seeing Santana leaning against the far wall with her hands shoved in her pockets._

"_My sister Anna is at college," Santana said. "And you'll meet my brothers Juan and Carlos, and baby Miguel, later on. But you'll stay in Anna's room while you're here."_

_Quinn shook her head, curls bobbing against her shoulders. "I won't be here long."_

_Santana's eyes narrowed and she tilted her head. "I think you'll be here forever."_

"_I'm going _home_," Quinn said stubbornly._

_Santana offered her a crooked smile. "I've got a secret. Wanna know what it is?"_

_She wasn't sure she liked this little girl with her dirty clothes and her grubby face, but Quinn was 7 years old and she wanted to know a secret._

_She nodded._

_Santana Lopez crossed the floor and leaned into her ear. "We're going to be sisters someday. You just wait."_

"Doesn't stop me from wanting to," Quinn sighed, stabbing the chicken with her fork.

Santana rolled her eyes. "Someday, Q."

"And in the meantime you'll keep taking care of me."

Her voice was soft, a little sorrowful, regretting.

Santana poked her in the side and Quinn giggled, batting her hand away.

"I promised, Q."

Quinn nodded, turning back to her dinner.

She'd promised.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: This story deals with mature subject matter. Subjects addressed are dissociative identity disorder, (non-graphic) abuse, and attempted suicide. Please read at your own discretion. **

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She'd promised.

She'd promised. It kept running through her head as Santana trudged upstairs to their apartment, her back killing her from being kicked by some eight year old brat the moment he'd heard the word "shot." It'd taken two nurses to hold him down. And it'd taken all her strength not to lay out Dr. Abrams, too, for even saying it. The last thing you needed to do was say "shot" in a pediatric clinic.

_Dumbass._

She didn't bother changing out of her scrubs before she dropped her coat and bag onto the floor in the living room and crashed face down onto the couch. Dr. Abrams had seen her stormy look and had sent her home with 800mg of ibuprofen in her system, and Quinn was still at her poetry class, so Santana curled her arms under her head and tried to rest before her sister got home.

Quinn had tried to work since she was 16, and when they'd moved to NY (it had taken a LOT of convincing to Mama and Papa Lopez), she'd tried then, too. But too many calls from bosses about "your sister's cracked, dude," and Santana had put her foot down.

And as much as she didn't mind it… Santana was tired. If she really tried to think about it – and she didn't – she'd been tired since the first time it'd happened.

Her name was Beth, and she was six years old.

They hadn't named her; she'd done that herself, pouting petulantly when Santana had made the mistake of calling her "Quinn." Santana was a fast learner, and it had only taken three or four mistakes of calling the girl by the "wrong" name before she realized that something was going on.

There were other differences, some subtle and some… not so. Like the way Beth's voice was high and breathy, while Quinn's was always calm and controlled, sometimes _too controlled_ when she was angry. Where Quinn liked cop shows and courtroom dramas, Beth's arrival always meant a flip of the channel to cartoons, or one of the 15 SpongeBob DVDs Santana had would find its way into the player.

When they lived at home, as Quinn crossed the threshold of age into double digits one side of her closet gradually became stuffed with things that Beth wanted: play-doh, crayons and coloring books, a couple of Santana's old dolls. Colley, on the other hand, never left his position on Quinn's bed, where he had been since she was seven. Santana once rolled her eyes at the fact that that bear went everywhere with her sister, but then all she had to do was think back to the night that Quinn had arrived.

_She was… if Santana had been older she would have known words like "pristine," or "immaculate," but the only word she could formulate in her 7 years and 8 months old mind was…_

_Perfect._

_Santana stood up against the wall in the hallway outside the bathroom, hands tucked in her pockets. She looked down and surveyed her hand-me-down WMHS tee-shirt, covered in ketchup and hot sauce from the night's dinner, and thought about the little girl tucked behind a door inside the small room._

_Santana's family had taken in foster children for as long as she could remember; she'd asked once and Papa had just said something about he had wanted to give children what he never had. And since there were only grandparents on Mama's side, and Papa never talked about his childhood, Santana figured it was best not to keep bringing it up. _

_The situation was always the same: little boys and girls with battered bodies and a few belongings shoved into duffel bags or trash bags, or teenagers with their sullen faces and bad attitudes born of too many nights spent crying for mercy to a God that seemed to never hear them. Some of them, _most_ of them, showed up in old clothes or pajamas; a couple of them were in such bad shape that Mama would hit the hall closet where all the hand-me-downs were, and soon it would be as if a pseudo-Anna or Carlos had taken up residence in the Lopez house._

_In all the years that Santana remembered having foster brothers and sisters… none of them had ever shown up like the little girl locked inside the bathroom._

_Not in a lacy dress without a spot of dirt on it, not in white ankle socks with tiny Mary Janes, not with perfectly curled blonde hair and a polite, frozen smile accompanying the name on her lips._

_Quinn Celeste Fabray._

_But there was something else Santana had noticed, too, something that had made her immediately agree to "take care" of the little girl, beyond her usual grudging acceptance of her mama's order._

_It had never mattered, with the other foster kids, about their clothes or the dinners Mama would serve or the games that Santana would try to play with them. They always left. It could be a couple of days, a few weeks, or even a couple of hours in the case of that one kid who had tried to burn the house down._

_Whether they went back to their homes or ran away to a crack house or simply just disappeared inside the system once more… they always left._

_But then the little girl opened the door to the bathroom and stepped out again, arms clutched tightly around her teddy bear. And it was on the tip of her tongue to laugh at Quinn, to call her a baby because _she_ didn't need a teddy bear, had never needed one._

_But Quinn had tilted up her head, chin resting on the soft fur of the bear in her arms, and her hazel eyes met Santana's._

_And maybe Santana Lopez was only seven years old, maybe she hadn't seen enough of the world or all its pain yet, but the look in those eyes chilled her, and she suddenly had the desire to murder whoever had put that hurt there, in a little girl with perfect clothes and perfect hair._

_That's when Santana knew._

_Quinn wouldn't be leaving._

As the years went on, Santana learned how to catch the different quirks that her newfound foster sister had. For instance, Quinn was right-handed, her penmanship clear and concise, much like the girl herself.

Quinn C. Lopez

Beth was left-handed, and Santana's eyes had widened, the first time she'd seen the… girl's? name scratched out on the edge of a Hello Kitty coloring page.

b e t h f a b r a y

Then there were the storms.

The first time Santana had found the little girl in the closet during a storm, she hadn't thought much of it. Not everyone could be Santana Maria Lopez, wanting to run outside and play in the rain even as the thunder rolled and the lightning struck a tree in the yard next door. (Smoke and fire were kind of _really_ cool, she thought, as long as it wasn't _her_ house.)

Santana's parents didn't think anything of it when they started getting calls from Quinn's elementary school teachers after the little girl disappeared during storms, only to be found in the coat room or in the bathroom, huddled in the corner. And for those times when she was in a different class, the only way the teachers could coax her out was to shake their heads and say to another student three simple words.

"Go find Santana."

The tan-skinned girl would walk into whatever classroom her sister was in with her head held high, all flesh and bone and skinned knees, lip curled in defiance and an attitude to match. But then the most curious transformation would happen, teachers would tell each other over coffee in the break room.

Santana would peer around the corner of a wall or a door, then step in and drop to her knees next to her sister. Her normally abrasive (smartass, her braver teachers would say) voice would soften. Hands that usually hurled rocks at Mr. Azimio's son would be infinitely gentle as she'd pull Quinn's thumb out of her mouth and stroke blonde hair out of her eyes. She would sit with Quinn talking to her until Papa or Mama would arrive, and then would pout when Quinn could leave school and she had to stay.

But always she would watch until the car pulled out of the parking lot, seeing a little hand plastered against the back window as a small face stared back at her. Only when the car was out of sight would Santana Lopez square her shoulders and go back to class as if nothing happened.

When they were sixteen years old, Santana and her parents realized that they could no longer call Quinn's "episodes" just a quirk, or what her counselors had deemed "anxiety," "just depression," or "phobias." They weren't able to consider her just a little girl afraid of thunderstorms.

"_I need a hit, baby, give me it… you're dangerous, I'm lovin' it…"_

_Santana's hips moved against Mike's in a way that would get her grounded for the rest of her natural life if Papa Lopez caught her, but she didn't care. The music was loud in her ears, the WMHS gym was dark except for the strobe, and her head was hazy with her first shot of vodka ever. Karofsky's older brother had scored a bottle and Mike had dared her._

_And Santana Lopez never backed down from a dare, even if it had burned going down, causing her to splutter and the guys to laugh, thumping her in the back._

_It'd taken some convincing, but Quinn was on the other side of the gym, talking and laughing with some of Santana's Cheerios friends. The Latina had gone out for the squad the first week of classes, but Quinn had shaken her head at the suggestion she join as well. Santana was glad, partly because both she and her parents thought Quinn wouldn't be able to handle it, and partly because her position as co-captain was enough to protect Quinn from the hierarchy of high school. _

_Things had calmed down with Quinn somewhat, even if she'd amassed a weird collection of toys and coloring books in that dark, farthest corner of her closet, that her brothers and sisters teased her about being too old for. She still hated thunderstorms and would still hide in the closet, but Mama (after Santana had bitched to her for the hundredth time) had put a stop to the other Lopez kids ragging on her about it._

_The look in her eyes hadn't changed, though._

_The song ended and Mike smiled at her, asking her if she wanted anything to eat or drink. As he headed off to the refreshments table, her brows furrowed, seeing her sister talking to Karofsky. Quinn was still against the wall with an unreadable expression on her face as Karofsky leaned into her, one arm on the wall next to her head. Unlike Santana, who seemed to have a date every night of the week (home by nine, of course), Quinn hadn't even seemed to notice guys. She seemed to like it better that way, anyway, staying at home with her nose buried in a book. That was the only thing Santana would ever tease her about, and every once in a while it would cause Quinn's smile to reach her eyes._

_But Quinn's smile was gone now, Santana saw as Mike showed up at her side and handed her a can of Coke, because Karofsky had moved so that he was almost flush with her._

"_Shit," Santana swore, recognizing the panicked look that was now on her sister's face. _

Not here_, she silently asked God_, please not here.

_How many people had she beaten up after school, for calling Quinn a freak? How many times had she held her sister as she'd cried into Santana's shoulder, after a slushie had made contact with her face and the word "retard" had reached her ears? How _fucking tired_ was Santana sometimes, having to coax Quinn out of the bathroom – with the teddy bear that she kept in her locker – as soon as thunder boomed outside?_

_But as tired as she was, she handed Mike the Coke, advancing across the floor… only to stop dead in her tracks when she heard, over the music, the pop of a fist meeting flesh, and the crack of bone. She stood, dumbfounded, watching as Karofsky yelped and grabbed his nose, blood spurting from between his fingers, watching as her sister threw back her head… and laughed._

_This was different. Santana's sister, in her dark blue dress, wasn't cowering in fear. She wasn't cringing with her arms wrapped around a toy, or standing with her eyes searching the crowd, looking for the protection that was another girl a mere two months older._

_No, _this_ Quinn was sneering, drawn up to her full height, fists clenched at her sides, glaring at Karofsky with fire blazing in her eyes. Eyes that were hard as steel, but cloudy at the same time, Santana noticed as she walked cautiously the rest of the way to her sister. The gymnasium had fallen silent, teachers were coming towards them, and when her sister turned to her, hearing the sound of her footsteps, Santana's breath caught in her throat._

_This… _wasn't Quinn.

_Santana folded her arms across her chest. "So," she drawled carefully, "What's _your _name?"_

_Quinn flashed her teeth in an almost feral grin as she surveyed the blood on her fist with pride, not caring that now they were surrounded by angry school officials demanding an explanation._

"_Puck."_

Two hours and a one-week suspension later, Quinn had her first appointment with a new therapist, and at the age of 16, words that Santana really never thought she'd have to learn began swirling around in her head.

Schizophrenia? Verbal and auditory hallucinations?

They'd ruled that out quickly, and then the barrage of other things that made Quinn cry, alone in her bed at night, while Santana listened across the hall in her own bed. Eventually Quinn would come to join her and Santana would just drape an arm around her, listening as her sister spouted off every word the therapists threw at her.

Alters. Switching. Children from abusive homes. Post-traumatic stress.

Dissociative identity disorder.

Santana raised her head enough to glance at her watch. 5:30 p.m. She'd fallen asleep on the couch, she guessed. A quick survey of the apartment told her that Quinn wasn't home yet, and an uneasy feeling began to settle in the back of her mind. Quinn's class ended at 4:35, and it didn't take the girl longer than a half hour to get home, even if she took the long way through the park. Her sister picked up her phone and dialed Quinn's number, rolling her eyes at the Lady Gaga "Telephone" ring back tone, but her eyebrows knitted together when Quinn didn't answer.

"_Mija, you have to stop coming home with black eyes."_

_Santana shrugged, wincing as Mama placed a Ziploc bag full of ice over her eye._

"_Get 'em to stop calling Quinn a freak, then," she muttered._

_Mama sighed heavily and slumped into the chair next to Santana at the kitchen table._

"_Still?"_

"_Every day."_

"_But it doesn't happen every day," her mother pointed out._

_Santana nodded. "I know, Mama, but…" She trailed off and shook her head, thumping her head against the back of the chair and closing her eyes._

"_But what?"_

"_Quinn can… she's not that scared little kid anymore, you know?" Santana said. "She can be mean, she can be a bitch. Not all the time," she hastened to add, seeing Mama's face darken. "But she can protect herself. But at the end of the day, she's still a seventeen-year-old girl who keeps a teddy bear in her locker."_

"_Surely they don't pick on her for just that," Santana's mother said with an amused smile as she got up to begin fixing dinner._

_Santana growled in frustration and slammed the bag of ice onto the table. "No, they don't pick on her _just for that_. They pick on her because she spaces out during class sometimes, because she looks terrified every time a guy gets too close. Because they remember what she did at the dance to Karofsky. Because _sometimes_ when she talks, it's not Quinn, but _Beth_. _We_ might not think it's freaky, Mama, but they do. _We_ understand it, but _they_ don't. And sometimes…"_

_Santana got up from her chair, the frustration threatening to overwhelm her, and landed a solid punch against the fridge._

"_Sometimes I get so fucking _tired_ of having to defend her. I promised you I'd take care of her, but I didn't sign up for _this_!"_

_Santana and her mother heard the whimper at the same time; Santana whirled around just in time to see a flash of blonde hair disappear around the corner, and moments after a bedroom door slammed._

_Santana deflated and leaned against the counter. "Fuck."_

"_Language," her mother warned. She walked over and took her daughter in her arms, hugging her, and for once, Santana melted into the embrace._

"_You're not her keeper, mija," Santana's mother said gently. "She belongs to this whole family, not just you, you know."_

_Santana shrugged and pulled away from her mother. "I promised. Not just you."_

_Her mother tilted her head. "What do you mean?"_

_Santana shook her head and made her way down the hall, stopping in front of the closed door that led to her sister's bedroom. She took a deep breath, and knocked._

_She'd promised. The night that a shaking and a tearful Quinn had shown up in her bedroom, and Santana had held her while she'd cried… she'd promised. She'd promised, and Quinn had calmed down enough to go back to her own room. And when Santana had gotten up later that night to use the bathroom and she'd seen the tall, hulking figure of the newest foster kid lurking just outside Quinn's open door…_

_She'd made good on that promise._

Santana sat bolt upright on the couch as her phone began to rattle off Quinn's familiar ringtone. Seizing it up, she answered it.

"Hey, baby sis, I was wondering where you—"

"_Excuse me, is this Santana Lopez?"_

Santana gritted her teeth, standing up and putting on her shoes and looking around for where she'd dropped her keys. "Yeah, who's this?"

"_Do you know a Quinn Lopez?"_

"Yeah," she said again. "Who're you?"

"_Oh, good, I was so afraid that I would call someone who didn't know her, and I wasn't sure what I should do after that, because even though I pride myself on always being prepared, I—"_

"Hey! Who the fuck are you and why are you calling me from my sister's phone?"

"_Well, really, there's no need for such language. I'm a classmate of Quinn's, and I'm here with her."_

Santana flexed her fingers, swearing softly to herself; her face brightened when she saw her keys glinting on the table by the door. Clutching the phone to her ear, she seized them up, pacing the floor of the living room.

"So put her on the phone."

"_I'm afraid I can't do that, I'm sorry."_

"Why the fuck not?"

"_Could you not swear—"_

"Lady, I _swear_ that you are going to regret it if you do not put my sister on the phone or explain to me what the fuck is going on!"

"_I think there's something wrong._"

Santana took a deep breath. "Put her on the phone, please."

There was a shuffling, then, quietly, it came.

"_Santy?_"

Santana sighed. "Hey, Bethie."

"_I want to go home."_

Santana opened the door to her apartment and headed down the hall, to the stairwell that led to the parking garage. "Okay, sweetheart. Can you put your friend back on the phone for me?"

More scuffling.

"_Hello_?"

"Who are you?"

"_Can you tell me what to do? I'm not sure what I can—"_

"Where are you?" Santana gritted her teeth as she climbed into her truck and put it in reverse, backing out of the parking space and nearly speeding out of the garage.

"_We're at the school, on the quad. I'm a fellow student in her poetry class, and Quinn and I are acquaintances, well, not really acquaintances, though I've always wanted to get to—"_

"Quad, school," Santana interrupted, wondering if the girl on the other end had ever learned the concept of _shutting the fuck up_. "I got it. Now, who are you?"

"_Rachel. Rachel Berry._"

"Okay, Berry," Santana said, making a right and pointing the truck in the direction of NYU.

"Stay with her. I'm on my way."


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: This story deals with mature subject matter. Subjects addressed are dissociative identity disorder, (non-graphic) abuse, and attempted suicide. Please read at your own discretion. **

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Rachel Berry was late.

In the binder that she kept by her bed, of which the first page was entitled "Rachel Berry's Foolproof Plan of Life: How to Win the EGOT (And Possibly Fall in Love, Though Not Likely)," the premier entry was: Take Broadway by storm at the age of twenty.

Sitting in Dr. Alan's poetry and poetics class at the age of 19, hearing that she'd been assigned to partner up with Matt Rutherford (who was eyeing her like she was bacon on the slab), Rachel was painfully aware of just how far off-track her plan had gotten.

Born and raised in Cincinnati, Rachel had had no problem convincing her dads (yes, she had two, and if anyone objected she'd be happy to hand them a pamphlet and a business card with contact information for the ACLU) to let her go to New York for college, even after Juilliard rejected her. True, it took two weeks of being curled up on her bed crying to G-d and Barbra Streisand before she'd gotten up, inked "Chapter Three: Finding Your Strength in the Midst of Soul-Crushing Rejection By the College of Your Choice" into the outline for her autobiography, and applied to NYU.

Her freshman year, she'd roomed with Brittany Pierce in one of the dorms on campus. The other girl was a dancer, sweet if a little dim, who grinned and shook her head at Rachel's side of the room, decorated with posters of Broadway – and a Bengals jersey in the middle. At the end of their first semester, both Rachel and her friend had had enough of dorm life. They scoured the city until Brittany had landed a lease for a small two-bedroom above a dance studio. It wasn't long before the dance studio folded, and Brittany, who had some money saved up from her grandmother, bought it for next to nothing and dropped out of college. It was Rachel who had had the bright idea that they should also offer music lessons in addition to dance, and Brittany had agreed – despite Rachel putting her foot down against the name of Berry-Pie Studio of Music and Dance. So Britt taught classes while Rachel was in class, and then hit the clubs at night. Rachel gave piano lessons twice a week, sometimes to the grandchildren of the women in Brittany's dance classes.

The girls were both perpetually exhausted, but were surprised that they had become very good friends despite their differences. Rachel knew that Brittany was smarter than she let on, and Brittany was always there with tea and chocolate each time Rachel came back to the apartment with downcast eyes after a failed audition. She'd thought it would be easier. She'd thought she would show up in NY and take Broadway by storm, as her fathers and all her music instructors in Cincinnati had told her she would.

In Cincinnati, maybe, Rachel was unique.

In New York City, Rachel Berry was just another in a long line of girls, all with the refrain "god I hope I get it" lingering in their minds as they mounted the stage steps to put their hearts on the line, only to have those hearts handed back.

Not good enough.

So she taught music to eight year olds after classes during the week, and on the weekends when Brittany was sweating on the dance floor, Rachel took the stage at Mike's on the corner, in front of men and women too drunk to know the difference between Lloyd Webber and Rodgers and Hammerstein. But every Friday night, without fail, she sang.

Dr. Alan's poetry and poetics class was Rachel's favorite, other than her music classes; she didn't _need_ that class but she'd always prided herself on being well-rounded. Still, the minute she moved her notebook and papers so that she could sit at the desk across from Matt Rutherford and the words left his lips, she began to regret her decision to take the class.

"I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime?"

He was a nice enough guy, even if he had been pursuing her since the start of the semester. And it wasn't that he was bad-looking either; he was tall with dark skin and muscles that rippled in his arms below the sleeves of the tee-shirts he always wore. And he was a phenomenal dancer; Rachel had seen him a couple of times when she'd met Brittany outside her classes freshman year. He was in a few of _her_ classes this semester, and Rachel was pretty sure the guy was going to be a certified triple threat: singer, dancer, and actor.

The problem was… she just wasn't interested.

She'd had a relationship or two in high school, one with a football player who was too tall for his own good, and the other with a girl in her glee club, but both of them had fizzled out within a few months. Rachel suspected they just couldn't keep up with her: she was far too driven, far too focused to let something like love get in the way of her dream.

So she smiled politely and turned Matt down, once again.

"We should get started on our analysis of the 'May Magnificat,'" she said, and Matt just grinned and shrugged good-naturedly, probably thinking he'd wear her down sooner or later.

As she turned the pages in her Norton Anthology, Rachel could just barely hear the soft voice of the girl sitting behind her. Quinn was her name, she remembered, the girl with the blonde hair and hazel eyes who always sat in the back of the room and was out the door as soon as class ended. The girl who talked about poetry as if it was second nature, who read aloud the poems of Keats and Lorca and Shakespeare as if the words were music rolling off her tongue, and who laughed rarely, but when she did, it was as if it filled the entire room.

Not that Rachel had noticed or anything.

But if she _had_ noticed, she'd be aware of the fact that Quinn's voice was now just a little louder, and her words were coming out a little harsher, to Rachel's ears as she sat hunched over her anthology and tried to concentrate on Hopkins.

"I said no. Now please, we need to focus on Arnold."

Another voice, male this time.

"Aw, come on; just give me your phone number. I'll call you up this Friday, take you to dinner, a club, and treat you to a little dancing… then maybe after…"

If Rachel had turned around then (which she didn't, even if she _was_ disgusted by the oily slick tone of the guy's voice) she would have seen his eyebrows waggle suggestively… and she would have seen the look on Quinn's face. And she might have been alarmed, but all her attention was suddenly focused on the sound of one pound of poetry textbook slamming to the floor.

_Now_ turning around, Rachel saw that it was Quinn's book, and the aforementioned blonde was rigid at her desk, her eyes closed and her lips set into a tight, thin line. Her partner was staring at her, brow furrowed in confusion, and, Rachel noted, a little derision, which only served to make a feeling like anger start to rise up in her. And Rachel Berry was nothing if not a take charge kind of girl, so it was no surprise to her the minute she found herself next to Quinn's desk, squatting down low so that her face was level with the other girl's.

"Quinn?" She queried softly. No answer. "Quinn, are you okay?"

She didn't _look_ okay. Rachel hadn't ever talked to the girl; they were barely acquaintances, much less friends, which was rather disappointing to Rachel because Quinn seemed like someone she'd want to know, just for the simple fact that she was pretty, smart, and had a voice that sounded like a thousand musical notes blended together to make a symphony of song.

Wait, what?

She shoved that thought back in her mind as Rachel became hyper-aware of the paleness of Quinn's face, the way every muscle in her body was stiff and unyielding, how her lips moved as if she were having a silent conversation with someone Rachel couldn't see. Her small (dainty) hands were gripping tightly onto the desk, and Quinn's breath was leaving her lungs in ragged gasps.

"Quinn?" Rachel reached out and lightly shook the girl's shoulder.

"No, no," Quinn muttered, sounding hollow. "Don't, I don't want him to hurt you…"

Rachel cast her eyes at Quinn's class partner, who backed up, his chair scraping the floor and his hands palms up in front of him. She became acutely aware that the exchange had caught the attention of the other students, and Dr. Alan was making his way to them from the front of the room. Rachel turned her focus back to Quinn, and saw that the girl's eyes were open, a frantic look in them, and she was shaking.

"No one's going to hurt you, Quinn," Rachel whispered soothingly.

Quinn turned those terrified hazel eyes to Rachel, and the brunette girl's breath died in her throat.

_Beautiful…_ _Stop it, _she berated herself. _Now is not the time…_

"Oh, god," Quinn murmured, "I think I'm going to pass out… oh god…"

Rachel didn't hesitate, reaching down to gather up Quinn's books and papers and shoving them into her messenger bag, before her hand gently grasped Quinn's arm, lifting her to her feet.

"Come on," she said, and glanced at Dr. Alan, who hovered over them, a look of ill-concealed disapproval on his face. "We'll go outside and get you some air." She lifted her chin defiantly at him, smirking when the elderly man just nodded, anxious to get his class back under control, she figured.

To her surprise, Quinn didn't protest at Rachel carefully propelling her out of the classroom and out of the building. The girl was trembling and when her steps faltered, Rachel let go of the girl's arm, only to slide hers around Quinn's waist.

"He'll hurt you," Quinn mumbled, her steps becoming stuttered and weaving.

Rachel struggled to steady her, steering her in the direction of a bench on the quad. "No one's going to hurt anyone, Quinn," she said as calmly as she could muster – which was a feat, considering she was used to her own panic attacks – was that what this was? – And no one else's.

"I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

Instead of seeming reassured, the minute Quinn's body touched the bench, she began to gasp for breath, clutching the wood and digging her fingernails in. Rachel dropped to her knees in front of her.

"Quinn," she said firmly, "You need to breathe. In and out, okay? In and out." When her words had no effect, Rachel sighed heavily. "_Quinn_," she said again, sharper this time. "You're all right. _Breathe_, Quinn, come on."

To her surprise, Quinn seemed to listen, drawing in one deep breath, then another. Her head dropped low as she stared at the ground; her lips moved in silent concentration. Rachel watched her anxiously, surveying her carefully. Suddenly she tilted her head in confusion, staring up at Quinn from her position on her knees.

Quinn wasn't blinking.

Rachel's eyes widened. "Quinn?" she whispered.

The blonde girl didn't answer… and still didn't blink. Her hazel eyes were clouded and she stared off into space, as if she were seeing something and seeing nothing at the same time. Rachel again reached out and carefully shook Quinn's shoulder.

"Quinn, are you okay?"

When she still didn't answer, and a full two minutes had gone by with the girl just staring and not blinking, Rachel began to panic. She began to rifle in Quinn's messenger bag, looking for bottles, pills, any medicine that would explain why there was a blonde _zombie_ in front of her. She found nothing, her fingers instead closing over the cool smoothness of Quinn's iPhone. Rachel pulled it out and immediately went to Quinn's contacts. She scrolled through them, seeing one Lopez after another and having no clue who to call.

"Santy?"

Rachel's gaze snapped up. Quinn's eyes were open, clear, blinking, and Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. She smiled.

"Hey there," she said easily. "You scared me." She moved to sit next to Quinn, and was startled when she scooted away from her, right at the other edge of the bench.

"Quinn?"

"Where's Santy?"

Rachel scrunched her face in confusion. "Where's who?" she said slowly, wondering why Quinn's voice had increased in pitch. (She had perfect pitch, so it was natural that Rachel would notice that Quinn's had changed, she told herself.)

"I'm Rachel," she tried to explain, even though she was sure Quinn knew her. "I'm in your poetry class."

Instead of realization, a look of utter terror crossed over Quinn's face, and she started to cry.

Rachel shifted her position closer to Quinn, and was rewarded by a whimper as Quinn jumped up and moved away from her once more, staring at her in fear.

"Quinn, what's going on?"

In all Rachel's nineteen years, she'd never experienced this, never seen a girl standing in front of her, wringing her hands in front of her and bouncing a little on her heels, crying and mumbling something about "Santy."

"I want Santy," Quinn was saying over and over.

"Santa Claus?" Rachel said in confusion.

That only made Quinn cry harder.

"I want Santy," she sobbed. She looked at Rachel. "Please, please let me have Santy, I promise I'll be good…"

"Okay, Quinn—"

"Don't call me that!"

Rachel threw up her hands and huffed. She was faced with a classmate, at first going hysterical, and now… well, still hysterical, talking in a high, childish voice and demanding that Rachel not call her by her name.

Really, it was straight out of absurdist theater, and Rachel had apparently forgotten her lines.

"Please?" Quinn sniffled at her, her lower lip sticking out slightly. (It was _really_ cute, Rachel would have thought, if she hadn't been so annoyed. But she was annoyed, and didn't think it was cute. Not at all. Nope.)

"Please can I have Santy?"

"I don't know who that is," Rachel entreated with frustration.

Quinn's eyes dropped and that lower lip trembled. "She's my Santy," she whispered.

"I promise I won't be a bad girl anymore."

Rachel's heart melted and she sighed at the sad expression on Quinn's face. "You're not a bad girl," she found herself saying. "I promise. I don't think you're a bad girl."

"You're Rachel." Quinn regarded her suspiciously.

She blinked in surprise, and took a deep breath. "I'm Rachel."

"Ray… chel," Quinn said slowly, tears still coursing down her cheeks, and she sniffled. "Ray."

Rachel smiled a little. "Yeah. Ray." She patted the seat next to her on the bench. "Come sit. I'll try to find Santy for you."

This seemed to brighten Quinn, and she sat down immediately.

"You'll find Santy?"

"Yeah," Rachel nodded, even though she was unsure. She glanced down at the phone in her hand and quickly scrolled through the contacts again, until she landed on a name.

Santana Lopez.

Santana… Santy?

She shrugged and hit Send, rolling her eyes a little when the chorus of Kick Ass met her ears.

Then, "_Hey, baby sis, I was wondering where you—"_

"Excuse me," Rachel interrupted, "Is this Santana Lopez?"

A pause. "_Yeah, who's this_?" The tone was cold, suspicious.

"Do you know a Quinn Lopez?" Rachel wasn't about to let her blonde… friend? (who was now swinging her feet on the bench, still sobbing quietly, and Rachel's brow furrowed) go with someone who might not know her, name in the girl's phone or not.

"_Yeah. Who're you?"_

"Oh, good," Rachel said, letting out a sigh of relief_. _"I was so afraid that I would call someone who didn't know her, and I wasn't sure what I should do after that, because even though I pride myself on always being prepared, I—"

"_Hey!"_ the voice on the other end of the phone interrupted her, and Rachel had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping. "_Who the fuck are you and why are you calling me from my sister's phone_?"

Oh, Rachel thought. Her sister. Of course. "Well," she said primly, "really, there's no need for such language. I'm a classmate of Quinn's, and I'm here with her._"_

"_Put her on the phone."_

Rachel almost held the phone out, but Quinn's eyes were closed, and she was still mumbling softly to herself, trembling hands furiously wiping tears out of her eyes and off her cheeks. To Rachel, she looked almost like a terrified little girl…

"I'm afraid I can't do that, I'm sorry."

"_Why the fuck not?"_

Rachel growled. The woman's voice was harsh, angry, and Rachel felt that at least some politeness was owed to her, after spending the last – she checked her watch – fifteen minutes tending to a grown woman who was acting almost like a four year old.

She tried again, patiently. "Could you not swear—"

"_Lady, I _swear_ that you are going to regret it if you do not put my sister on the phone or explain to me what the fuck is going on!" _

The words came out before Rachel had a chance to stop them, and as truthful as she may have thought they were, Rachel immediately kicked herself mentally for her lack of tact.

"I think there's something wrong."

The woman on the other end of the phone sighed heavily, and when she spoke again, her voice was low, tired, and Rachel felt a pang of empathy cut through her annoyance.

"_Put her on the phone, please."_

Rachel's lips curled in disapproval, but she held the phone out to Quinn anyway. "Someone wants to talk to you," she said encouragingly, when her blonde classmate stared at her warily.

Quinn took the phone. "Santy?" she said, and the hope in her voice nearly brought tears to Rachel's eyes.

She sounded fragile, young… still terrified, and Rachel felt guilty for being so harsh with her earlier.

"I want to go home."

Quinn listened to the voice on the other end of the phone, and then held it back out to Rachel.

"Hello?"

"_Who are you?"_

Quinn was crying again, and when Rachel reached out to gently rub her back, the girl jerked away. She gritted her teeth.

"Can you tell me what to do? I'm not sure what I can—"

"_Where are you?" _

Rachel closed her eyes briefly, wondering if Quinn's sister had ever learned the concept of manners. Quinn had learned them just fine, she thought, even if her blonde counterpart was now curled up on the bench, her legs drawn up to her chest and her forehead pressed to her knees as she still cried, but silently now. Rachel reached her hand out once more, heartened when this time, Quinn didn't pull away, but allowed Rachel to rub slow, soft circles on her back.

"We're at the school, on the quad. I'm a fellow student in her poetry class, and Quinn and I are acquaintances, well, not really acquaintances, though I've always wanted to get to—"

"_Quad, school, I got it. Now who _are_ you?"_

Rachel pursed her lips, deciding once and for all that she really did _not_ like this girl. "Rachel. Rachel Berry," she said evenly.

"_Stay with her. I'm on my way."_

Click.

Rachel growled to herself again and tucked the phone into her pocket. She noticed the warmth under her palm, and glanced over to see her hand still on Quinn's back. The girl wasn't looking at her, was just shaking her head, forehead still pressed to her knee, talking to herself.

"Quinn?" Rachel said tentatively. "Quinn… Santana's coming to get you."

Quinn stiffened, then relaxed, and her head lifted as she regarded Rachel with tear-stained cheeks.

"Santy's coming?"

Rachel smiled and nodded. "Yeah, she's coming, sweetheart."

Quinn sniffled again, then unfolded her legs and sat up on the bench. "Okay." She glanced at Rachel.

"Tell me a story."

Rachel blinked. "What?"

Quinn narrowed her eyes. "I wanna hear a story," she said stubbornly.

Rachel quirked an eyebrow, but the stony expression on Quinn's face was brooking no disagreement and Rachel chewed her lower lip, thinking.

"Once upon a time," she tried, and grinned a little when Quinn's face brightened and she scooted closer to Rachel, "in a kingdom far, far away called New York, there lived a princess named… uh… Quinn." She stopped and giggled when Quinn glared for her to continue.

"And in that same kingdom," Rachel went on, "there lived a peasant girl named Rachel."

"Ray," Quinn corrected firmly.

Rachel shook her head. "Yes, Ray. And, um… uh…"

She didn't have brothers or sisters, and so there weren't any nieces or nephews either, and she never told stories to the children who came to the studio. She'd never been told any bedtime stories by her fathers, since they'd been rather distant except to tell her she wasn't trying hard enough on the videos she posted to MySpace every week, hoping to be noticed by a talent scout.

So her repertoire of stories was very, very slim.

But it didn't matter, because Quinn had tipped her head toward Rachel and pronounced, "And Ray liked Quinn very, very much."

Rachel's eyes widened.

Well, okay, then. Never mind that she barely knew the girl. Just that, well, she had a nice voice. And her eyes were beautiful, light hazel with flecks of gold that she hadn't discovered after staring at them for the last five minutes while she tried to weave a story. Or that her hair was long and fell in curls over her shoulders, and Rachel was most definitely not wondering what it would be like to run her fingers through those strands, to find out if they were as soft as they looked.

And she was definitely focused on only the fact that Quinn was pouting, and not that her lips looked… kind of nice… while she was pouting.

Before Rachel could nod, though, before she could even think about saying the words "Yes, Ray liked Quinn very, very much," she saw a Latina woman hurrying towards them, and Quinn's face positively lit up when her gaze followed Rachel and she saw the woman.

"Santy!" she breathed, standing up.

Rachel watched as the tan-skinned girl came up to them and immediately Quinn's arms wrapped around her neck and she tucked her head onto the girl's shoulder.

"Santy," she murmured happily, holding on to her.

Rachel stood up herself, brushing off her skirt as she saw the Latina holding Quinn gently, rubbing her back.

"It's okay, baby girl," she was saying, "You're okay now; I'm going to take you home."

"She was fine," Rachel muttered. "Not like I hurt her or anything, but hey, I don't need a 'thank you,' not at all."

A pair of dark eyes turned to her, even as protective arms were wrapped around Quinn, and the Latina practically sneered at Rachel, gaze raking from her argyle skirt down to the knee socks she wore.

"Thank you for taking care of my sister," she said evenly. "I appreciate it."

She didn't _sound_ like she appreciated it, Rachel thought petulantly, but didn't voice it. The girl looked like she'd lay you in a second.

Unfortunately, what she _did_ voice was not at all the right thing to say.

"What's wrong with her?"

Santana separated herself from Quinn, reaching up to brush a tear away with her thumb, before advancing on Rachel.

"Nothing is wrong with her," she hissed lowly, fist closing around Rachel's collar and pulling so that Rachel was on her toes, her ear flush with Santana's lips. It'd be slightly arousing if she wasn't terrified for her life, and she squeaked.

"Nothing is wrong with her," Santana repeated, "Nothing."

"O-okay," Rachel agreed, nodding furiously. "I'm sorry, okay."

Santana glared at Rachel a moment longer before releasing her collar and Rachel dropped back down to her feet. She managed a huff but Santana quirked an eyebrow, smirking when the other girl squeaked. Santana wrapped her arm around Quinn and took the girl's messenger bag from Rachel, nodding once at her before the two of them continued off across the quad.

Rachel sank back onto the bench, taking a deep breath and trying to assess the day's events. She shook her head and ran a hand over her face. She remembered that her books were still inside the classroom and groaned, knowing the room was probably locked, and she had homework stuck in the binder under her desk, homework that was due the next day. Standing up, she shoved her hands in her pocket, only to furrow her brow and draw her right hand back out, fingers curled around a white iPhone.

Rachel stared down at it, and then glanced across the quad, at the retreating backs of Quinn and her sister, too far away now for her to call after them. A sly, slow grin spread across her face as she walked off towards her classroom.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: This story deals with mature subject matter. Subjects addressed are dissociative identity disorder, (non-graphic) abuse, and attempted suicide. Please read at your own discretion. **

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"Are you going to tell her?"

Santana watched as Quinn closed her eyes briefly, then pinched the bridge of her nose and blew out a puff of air.

"Of course not."

She sat down next to her sister and both of them stared at Santana's phone on the coffee table. The girl had called the night before, explaining that she had mistakenly (Santana had snorted at that one, causing her sister to elbow her in the ribs) kept Quinn's phone, and would be happy to return it if they could arrange a convenient time and place the next day to meet.

This meant that in an hour's time, Quinn (and Santana, who had refused to not go) would be joining Rachel Berry at a Starbucks down the street.

Last night, Beth hadn't relinquished control to Quinn until they were safely back in the apartment, and just before, Quinn had pulled her thumb out of her mouth, regarded Santana with a calm expression, and said bluntly, "I like Ray."

The way those clouded hazel eyes had regarded her sister gave Santana an uneasy feeling. So, no, Quinn was _not_ meeting with Rachel Berry by herself.

Quinn was, for lack of a better word, mortified that she had switched in front of Rachel. As always, she hadn't been able to give many details to Santana, except to say that her assignment partner hadn't really wanted to take no for an answer about Quinn giving him her phone number. After that, as she had every other time, Quinn had only been able to describe the feeling of being very angry, and fighting to maintain her control over Puck. Everything that had followed was hazy for her, except she remembered, very clearly, the warm touch of a small hand on her back: gentle, comforting.

This had led Santana to the question.

_Are you going to tell her_?

And of course Quinn had said no, and of course Santana easily caught the look resting just behind Quinn's nonchalant expression.

_What if…?_

She had seen that look only a couple of times before, and each time, it had spelled disaster. Despite her diagnosis, Quinn was just like any other young woman when it came to wanting love. When it came to maintaining a relationship, though… The last time, while Quinn had sobbed face down on her bed, Santana had felt all too inadequate, words like "It's not your fault," and "She just didn't get it," slipping through her lips and feeling false. Quinn had come out to her as a lesbian when they were fifteen, to their parents when she was seventeen, but she'd never really "come out" to anyone besides her family about the alters. Somehow, Quinn had said to Santana, being a lesbian was a lot easier than having five personalities.

And those were just the ones they knew of.

"You know you can't tell her."

"I know," Quinn said softly, now not looking at Santana, but toying with the hem of her tee-shirt.

"You'll just get hurt."

"I know."

"And I don't want that for you."

"_I know_."

They fell into an uneasy silence, then, Quinn finally getting up to go to her bedroom and get dressed. Santana just sat, figuring that Rachel Berry could deal with her scrubs. She leaned her head against the back of the couch and sighed.

Her own relationships hadn't been much better than Quinn's. True, she didn't have the DID to deal with, but… well, she was Santana Lopez. Neither guys nor girls had lasted very long under her scrutiny, and if she was being completely honest with herself, she didn't mind all that much. Her life was full: school, parents, work… and Quinn.

"_Your life revolves around your sister_," her last boyfriend had snarled a year ago, slamming his drink onto the table and standing up, tossing a napkin onto his plate. "_Quinn this, Quinn that, I can't go out, you have to come here, I can't leave Quinn, shh we have to be quiet we can't let Quinn hear_. _I'm done with this_."

The sad thing? Carl had been right.

Every boyfriend or girlfriend that had ever left her because she was too wrapped up in Quinn was right, had been right since a late night in October when they were sixteen.

_He was tall, like a giant with a perpetual dopey look on his face. Her parents had told her his full name, but all she cared about was his last._

_Hudson._

_He'd spent his life in and out of foster homes, but that wasn't anything new to Santana. Most of the kids that had come to her house had been in and out of the system. No, what was new was the polite way he talked to her parents, all "Yes, ma'am" and "No, sir" as if he wouldn't even let butter melt in his mouth. Mama Lopez had pronounced him "sweet," and "a good boy, in need of a hug and a strong foundation."_

_Santana had immediately distrusted him._

_She'd gotten up to use the bathroom that October night, shivering because summer was on its way out and there was a chill in the air. Afterward she headed back to her room, but was startled to hear muffled sniffles coming from down the hall._

_Her senses on guard, Santana turned in the direction of the sound, and saw him. _

_Hudson, standing just outside Quinn's bedroom, his eyes wide as if he had just been caught… doing what? _

_Santana's brow furrowed._

_The sobs were coming from Quinn's room._

_Her fists tightened at her sides. _

"_What did you do?"_

_Her voice was low, cold. She smirked when Hudson took a step back. She was five-foot-five and he was a fucking Neanderthal, but she could make a grown man cower if she wanted to._

"_I didn't do a damn thing."_

_In front of Quinn's door now, she peeked inside. Santana's breath stilled in her lungs._

_Her sister, curled into a ball on her bed. The covers thrown on the floor, Quinn's pants on top of the pile, underwear shoved down around her ankles. Quinn was rocking herself, back and forth, and she was mumbling to herself._

"_Bad girl. Bad girl."_

_Over and over._

"_I didn't do anything to her." He backed up even more. "Nothing that she didn't want."_

"_Liar," Santana hissed._

_In an instant she was on him._

"_You – fucking – liar!" She punctuated each word with a punch._

_Everything was a whirl of sound: Hudson's grunts, fists meeting stomach and bone, words of "Bastard – fucking kill you – how could you – asshole!", her parents' shouts of worry and confusion as she felt herself being pulled off…_

_But all Santana could hear was Quinn crying in her bedroom._

_Three hours later, Hudson was on his way to the county jail, Santana had given a statement to the Lima PD, and she'd been released to her parents, which, Santana's father ranted all the way to the hospital, was very lucky for her. She'd caused a mess, one that involved police and social workers swarming her house until they'd carted the asshole off to jail in the back of a cruiser. And much to her parents' chagrin, Santana had calmly told the police officers at the station that, given the chance, "fuck yes" would she do it all again. Two hours after the "fun" lecture from her father, she sat in an uncomfortable plastic bedside chair and cradled Quinn's hand in her bandaged ones. She smiled down at the girl in the hospital bed, who stared at her with tear-filled eyes._

"_I'm sorry," Quinn whispered. "I'm so sorry."_

"_Hey." Santana squeezed her hand as best she could, making sure not to wince at the pain. "It isn't your fault."_

"_Mom and dad—"_

"_Aren't taking in any more kids," Santana said flatly. "It's not worth it."_

_And they wouldn't be allowed to take in any more, anyway, not after what Santana had done. She kept that to herself._

"_Because of me."_

"_Because of you," Santana affirmed. "But that doesn't mean it's your fault. It just means we're going to protect you."_

_She leaned down and kissed Quinn's forehead. "No one is ever going to hurt you again. _Ever_."_

_She watched as Quinn's eyes slipped shut, and Santana drew the hospital blankets up over her sister's form._

"_No one's gonna get near you._"

An hour later, Santana felt a nudge on her foot and she opened her eyes, eyebrow quirking at her sister in a royal blue dress with black open-toed shoes.

"Going on a date?" she teased, ignoring the pestering feeling in the back of her mind.

"Of course, because I always take my big sister out on dates," Quinn shot back, but her hand was trembling as she toyed with a loose curl, teeth worrying her bottom lip.

She looked nervous, expectant, and that pestering feeling settled in Santana's gut.

"So tell me about this Berry chick," she said as she and Quinn wound their way through the early evening New York crowds to get to the designated Starbucks.

Quinn shrugged. "I don't know that much about her," she said nonchalantly. "She's kind of loud and she wears the strangest clothes. You should see her sweaters, they have animals on them. She talks _a lot_, never knows when to shut up. But when she talks she's really excited, and she's pretty smart; she knows a lot about poetry. Her favorite poet is Lorca, which she says is funny because she was born in Cincinnati, but she has a love for international poets—what?"

Santana raised her eyebrows at her sister. "Don't know a lot about her, huh?"

Quinn flushed a deep crimson and looked away. "I listen when people talk," she mumbled.

"You barely listen to _me_."

"Because you never shut up."

"You said _she_ never shuts up!"

"Who doesn't shut up?"

Apparently they hadn't realized they'd walked into the Starbucks, and Santana found herself in front of – oh dear _God_ she had a _moose_ on her sweater – the same short girl from the other day, a bright smile on her face and expectation in her eyes.

"No one," Quinn said hastily, and Santana's eyebrows rose when she caught sight of her sister brushing her palms over the front of her dress, smoothing non-existent wrinkles, then raising her hand and running her fingers through her hair.

"Just um, one of my professors."

"Oh," Rachel said cheerily. "I have a professor like that, she honestly thinks she knows absolutely everything there is to know about the theatre, but she didn't even know that Barbra Streisand's name was actually spelled with an extra "A" – I mean, who doesn't know that?"

Santana moved to raise her hand and flinched when Quinn smacked it. "Ow, what the hell, Q?"

Quinn glared at her; Rachel glanced at the two of them in confusion. "So," she said, "Would you like to order some coffee or tea? Shall we sit down? I've found a table for us in the corner, although I confess I think the barista thought I was a little odd when I called and tried to make a reservation."

They ordered their drinks: Quinn her caramel macchiato, Santana black coffee, and Rachel ordering something that had six words in it, not noticing how Santana and Quinn stared at her in ill-concealed amazement. Sitting down across from Rachel – and noting that Quinn sat _next_ to her – Santana took in the smaller girl, from her incredible (she thought) lack of height to the argyle skirt with the knee socks, the perfectly-combed brown hair and the vibrant, sparkling brown eyes.

"You… _called_ and tried to reserve a table at _Starbucks_?" Santana asked, remembering what she had said moments earlier.

Rachel's eyes narrowed momentarily, but then she straightened up with another smile. "One can never be too prepared." She fastened her gaze on Quinn. "How are you?" she asked, and Santana blinked at how soft the girl's voice had become.

She also noticed the light flush that tinged her sister's cheeks, and Santana sat up straighter.

"I'm fine," Quinn said, smiling. "Enjoying time out of class."

"Quinn and I have a poetry class together," Rachel said, turning her attention back to Santana. "But I think I told you that the other day when I met you. You're Santana, right?" Santana nodded. "Well, pleased to meet you again, Santana, I'm Rachel—"

"Berry," she finished. "Yeah, I remember."

"And you're sisters?" Rachel asked, glancing from Santana to Quinn. At Quinn's nod, she added, "Well, I hope you don't mind my saying—"

"I do."

Quinn shot Santana a look, and her sister grinned.

"—you don't look anything like sisters," Rachel finished, looking flustered.

"Adopted," Santana grudgingly supplied.

"When I was eight," Quinn said. She smiled at Santana, who smiled back. "Santana's parents took me in when I was six, and then two years later, they made me part of their family."

_Her heels clattered on the tile as she danced, watching as her dress rose and lifted with the motion of her feet. One hand was fisted around the brush, cleaning her teeth forgotten; golden curls floated around her shoulders. Suddenly she was swept into a pair of strong arms, and Quinn giggled at the pair of brown eyes twinkling at her in the mirror._

"_Someone likes her new shoes, eh, mi'ja?"_

"_Yes, Papi," she nodded vigorously, resting her head on his shoulder._

_He kissed the top of her head then settled her back on the floor. "And they make little Quinn seem like a very big girl," he said affectionately, "but let's get our teeth brushed so that we can go, okay? Even Miguel is ready before you!"_

_He winked at her. "Mami," she heard him call down the hall, "I think this one might like some tap-dancing lessons!"_

_Two hours later, with Santana on her other side, Quinn was toying with three-year-old Miguel's hand, only half-listening as the judge spoke to Mami and Papi._

"_Mr. and Mrs. Lopez, you understand that by agreeing to adopt Quinn, you are pledging to raise her with all the benefits and care that you would your biological children, and that it will be fully within her right to _expect_ those benefits?"_

_She heard Mami and Papi answer, and Santana shot her a grin. Then, suddenly, Miguel was pulled away and Quinn found herself in Papi's lap, staring up at the judge with wide hazel eyes._

"_Hi there, little Miss Quinn," he said, smiling at her._

"_Hi." Her voice was small, uncertain. Papi squeezed her waist gently._

"_Do you know why you're here, Quinn?"_

_She nodded. "'cause I want a mommy and daddy."_

_The judge smiled again; he had kind eyes, and she smiled back._

"_And who do you want for your mommy and daddy?"_

_She furrowed her brow. "Mami and Papi?" she asked uncertainly. She reached out her hand and Santana caught it quickly, linking their fingers together._

_The judge's smile grew wider, mirroring the Lopezes'. Mrs. Lopez was holding a squirming Miguel; Papi sat next to Quinn. Carlos and Juan sat behind them; Anna was in the middle of finals week and hadn't been able to leave Ohio State._

"_Okay, and if your Mami and Papi adopt you, do you know what your name will be?"_

_Quinn giggled. "Quinn Celeste Lopez!" she pronounced proudly, kicking her legs a little. Papi patted her back and she settled down, chewing on her lower lip and staring up at the judge._

"_Well, _I_ think that's absolutely a lovely name, and I think that you are an absolutely lovely girl to have that name. So, I see no reason why Quinn Celeste Fabray should not now be known as Quinn Celeste Lopez, and I approve of this adoption."_

_The judge raised his gavel._

"_Hey, I wanna bang that!"_

"_Santana!" Anna hissed as Mami and Papi stared at her in disapproval._

"_What?" she said, folding her arms across her chest. "I wanna do it like they get to on tv."_

"_Your honor," Papi started to say, but the judge was laughing._

"_Come on up, you."_

_Grinning, Santana ran up to the bench. He handed her the gavel; Quinn watched as her sister – _her sister_ – cradled it in both her hands, and then smacked it against the table._

_And just like that, Quinn became a Lopez. Her life quickly became a whirlwind of hugs and kisses, being swept up in Mami's arms and held tightly, then handed off to sixteen-year-old Juan. That's when Quinn froze._

_The woman wore yellow, bright as the dress Quinn had on; one hand played nervously with the cross at her neck as she watched the girl being snuggled in the embrace of her "new" family. Hazel eyes met familiar-yet-strange blue, and Quinn whimpered, burying her head in Juan's neck._

"_What is it, little sister?" he asked, making a little half-turn. She knew he knew when his arms stiffened around her, and she heard him whispering something to his father in Spanish._

"It's her."

_And then Quinn was being ushered with Santana out into the hallway of the courthouse; Juan set her on his feet and knelt by her, his hands on her shoulders to calm her shaking._

"_I don't want to go back," Quinn babbled, staring at him with tear-filled eyes. Her voice was high-pitched, almost baby-like, and Santana clutched her hand firmly. "I don't want to go with her, Juan, I'll be good, I promise I'll be good, don't make me go!"_

"_Hey, hey," Juan said softly, reaching his large hands up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. _

"_You're not going anywhere, little one, okay? You're ours now."_

_From the corner of her eye she saw the woman in yellow exiting the courtroom, a very angry-looking Mr. and Mrs. Lopez following close behind. She saw the woman pause, then move down the hallway until she was out of sight._

_Quinn took a deep breath, the words of her brother echoing in her head._

"_You're ours now."_

"That's absolutely amazing," Rachel said, and Quinn grinned at Santana in relief. Santana was glad that Quinn wouldn't have to answer the usual questions.

_Why are you adopted? Why were you in foster care? Why didn't your parents want you?_

(That one had been asked by one of Santana's Cheerios teammates; her locker had gone up in flames an hour later. Complete coincidence.)

"I'm adopted too, but I was only two days old when my fathers adopted me."

"Wait," Santana said. "Fathers?"

The smile dropped from Rachel's face, replaced by an expression that Santana could only describe as steely.

"Yes, I have two fathers. I hope that's not a problem?"

"Relax, Berry, of course not. It's kind of cool," Santana admitted.

"I think so too – it's Rachel, by the way – my fathers had been looking to adopt for a while and my mother Shelby wasn't in a stable position to raise me, and she felt my fathers were the best parents for me. I think it's simply wonderful that a person in her situation would choose to give her daughter to two gay men."

"Do you talk to her at all?" Quinn asked. "Your mother?"

Rachel shook her head, and once again Santana didn't fail to notice how Quinn's hand reached out and brushed Rachel's when the other girl's eyes saddened slightly. When Quinn saw her sister looking, she reddened and retracted her hand immediately.

"She has another family now, and unfortunately I don't think I… well, I don't think I fit."

"It's her loss," Quinn affirmed, offering Rachel a smile.

Rachel smiled back. "So I think I heard you say once that you're from Ohio, too?"

"Yeah, Lima."

"Oh, my goodness," Rachel exclaimed. "I lived in Cincinnati! I can't believe we grew up less than two hours away from each other, and here we are together in New York!"

"Yeah," Santana said drily, nursing her coffee. "Small world, isn't it, Berry?"

Rachel pursed her lips. "Would you mind calling me by my name?"

"Sure thing, Berry."

"Santana!" Quinn scolded, a note of amusement in her voice.

Santana smirked. "What? She said call her by her name. So I did."

"Is she always like this?"

"No—"

"Well, good, because if this is the way she normally—"

"She's usually worse."

Rachel huffed and Santana fought back a laugh, thinking she resembled a very angry Oompa-Loompa. But then it was _her_ turn to feel angry, because suddenly Rachel was looking very uncomfortable as she regarded Quinn, her hand pulling out the iPhone and sliding it across the table as she asked, "I hope I'm not being too rude, but are you okay, Quinn, after what happened the other day?"

"Hey, not your business," Santana snapped, at the same time Quinn managed a very embarrassed, "I, I'm fine, Rachel, it was just—"

A third voice joined the fray.

"Hey, Rach, there you are!"

Santana turned to look over her shoulder and she blinked as a tall blonde in a tank top and shorts waved at Rachel, a bright gleam in her blue eyes and a smile on her face. _Shit_, Santana thought, her eyes travelling, _girl's got legs that go on forever_… Her hair was long and pulled into a ponytail; her tank top was tight over… crap, _perfect_ curves… and it had a duck on the front – seriously, what was it with these people and animals on their clothes?

"Brittany!" Rachel said happily. "This is Brittany Pierce, my roommate. Come sit, I'll introduce you to my new friends!"

Santana drew back a little, staring at Rachel incredulously. She caught Quinn's eye then, at the set, thin line of her lips, and Santana groaned to herself.

Something told her that Rachel Berry wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Dammit.

The girl Rachel called Brittany grabbed a chair and twirled it backwards with her hand, moving to straddle it, sitting next to Santana, and the Latina drew in a breath. Bad decision, because something fruity with a little spice hit her nose, and the scent, combined with the – okay, she was gorgeous – gorgeous girl next to her practically made her drool.

"Friends," Brittany said, "I like new friends. What're their names?"

"This is Santana," Rachel said, gesturing.

Santana just gave a curt nod. "Hey."

"And this is her sister, Quinn, who is in my poetry class."

"Hey, Quinn," Brittany said, waving again even though she was only across the table. "Wait… Quinn. _The_ Quinn? The one that you keep saying is pretty?"

"Brittany!" Rachel gave a short, embarrassed laugh, and Quinn's face had flamed red to the tips of her ears. Santana gritted her teeth.

"No need to divulge things that are said in confidence, Brittany."

"What?"

"Don't repeat things I tell you!"

"Well, you're right though, she is really pretty."

"Britt—"

"I need some air," Santana said suddenly, and before anyone had time to protest she was out the door. She took a deep breath and fumbled in her jacket pocket until she found her pack, drawing it out and smacking it against her hand before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

Blue eyes. They were kind of mesmerizing, even though she'd seen them only for a split second. She had no idea why she was thinking of them, really, only that they were…

Well, as eyes went, they were pretty much the most beautiful she'd ever seen.

She stood on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall of the Starbucks and feeling the rough of the brick bite into her back even as she took a slow drag of her cigarette.

The shadow looming at her side unnerved her.

"You shouldn't smoke," Brittany said. She plucked the cigarette from Santana's hand and took a puff herself before handing it back.

Santana stared at the cigarette. It was fully on her mind that the minute she put her lips around it again, it would be like she and the tall blonde girl had shared a kiss.

"So what do you do?"

"Do?"

"Y'know, are you a student like Rachel, or do you have a job or…?"

"Both," Santana answered. "Taking classes at NYU, then working at a pediatric clinic part-time. Working on my nursing degree."

Why am I telling you all this? Santana wondered.

"Oh. I dance."

"Dance?"

Apparently coherent speech was not going to be her strong point today. She could hear Berry – god that girl was _loud_ – even outside, talking animatedly to Quinn.

"Yeah, dance." Brittany grabbed Santana's hand and pulled her into a little half-twirl, grinning when Santana shrugged off her hand and settled back against the brick again, eyes narrowed at her.

"You should go out with me."

In her surprise Santana took too long of a drag; her lungs revolted against the onslaught and she coughed loudly, dropping the cigarette and grinding it out with her foot.

Brittany slapped her back casually and Santana squeaked in protest.

"That's why you shouldn't smoke."

"Why," Santana croaked, "would I go out with you?"

Brittany shrugged, her lips spreading into a grin. "Caramel macchiatos and venti decaf non-dairy organic shit in a cup is nice, but sometimes," she shrugged again and glanced at Santana, who was still struggling to regain her breath.

"Sometimes you just want to sit in the darkest corner of the oldest bar you can find, and have a beer." Plus," Brittany leaned in, her lips practically brushing Santana's ear, and the Latina shivered as the blonde fairly whispered the last two words.

"I'm hot."

"And anyway," Brittany straightened up. "Rachel sings at Mike's on the weekends, and I try to go every so often to give her support."

"She sings? She doesn't look like she can sing anything except on the Small World ride at Disneyland, Disney World, whatever."

Brittany rolled her eyes. "Rachel's little, but her voice isn't. She'll be on Broadway once people get their heads out of their asses and hear how talented she is. But right now, the guys at the bar sometimes give her a hard time, so I try to even it out when I can. She says she needs applause to live."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Santana muttered.

Brittany laughed, and Santana found it hard to breathe again, though this time not from the cigarette smoke.

"Rachel can be obnoxious. But she's got a good heart." Brittany glanced back into the Starbucks; Santana followed her gaze, sighing inwardly when she saw Quinn laughing merrily at something Rachel had said.

"Besides, it looks like Quinn likes her."

_Exactly what I'm afraid of_.

"Come on, come with us tomorrow," Brittany said. "One night, and you'll never have to talk to me or Rachel again if you don't want to."

Santana considered this. Never having to see Berry, her hideous sweaters or her gigantic nose again? It was an enticing prospect… except Quinn was still smiling in the window, seemingly hanging on Rachel's every word.

"It's not me I'm worried about," Santana pointed out, but shook her head at Brittany's confused look.

"Never mind. Fine, I'll go, and if Quinn wants to, she can come too. But I swear to God if that midget starts singing show tunes I'm outta there."

Brittany laughed again and linked her arm through Santana's; the Latina stared in shock but didn't protest as Brittany propelled them both back in through the door and to the table.

"Good news!" she said happily. "Santana and Quinn are coming to the bar tomorrow to hear you sing!"

Rachel gasped in surprise at the same time Quinn arched an eyebrow at Santana and said "We are?"

Santana pointed at Brittany wordlessly.

Brittany grinned and slipped back into her chair. "I'll take the blame. You guys will have fun though. I promise, you'll love it when Rachel sings. And the drinks are all on me."

Rachel's eyes shone with excitement as she began to babble on about song selections and asking what Quinn's favorite artists were, and Santana shook her head when she saw that Quinn's cheeks were tinged pink again, and she was smiling at Rachel.

Yeah. Exactly what she was afraid of.

"You can't tell her," Santana said to Quinn again as they walked back towards their apartment, after having agreed to show up at the Starbucks tomorrow night so that Britt could take them to the bar. They'd exchanged numbers, and Santana was all too aware of the way Quinn had softly spoken to Rachel, fingertips lingering over the other girl's phone as she punched in the digits.

"I know, Santana."

"I don't want you to get hurt."

"Who says I will?" Quinn snapped.

Santana stopped and turned in front of her sister, hands shoved in her pockets. "Who says you won't?"

Quinn shook her head. "Maybe Rachel's different."

"And if she's not? None of the others were."

There'd only been a couple, but they'd still left Quinn broken-hearted, crying face-down on her bed as her sister struggled to pick up the pieces.

Quinn met Santana's eyes. "I don't know," she confessed.

"I just don't know."


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N: This story deals with mature subject matter. Subjects addressed are dissociative identity disorder, (non-graphic) abuse, and attempted suicide. Please read at your own discretion. **

Song used in this chapter is Sara Bareilles' "City." Also, yes, things move _too fast_ in this. I know. ;)

* * *

"So I told him that I certainly couldn't respect the opinion of a producer who didn't know the difference from an original London cast and a revival cast. I suspect this is what lost me the part…"

They were trailing behind Brittany and Santana, and Quinn was torn between trying to hear what her sister and the blonde girl were discussing, and listening to Rachel. But Rachel's voice effectively drowned out anything Santana might be saying, and though Quinn was only half-tuned in to what Rachel was going on about, Quinn was more than cognizant of the five-foot-two diva walking next to her.

Maybe it was Rachel's perfume, the soft scent of some designer fragrance coming off in waves. Or maybe it was how she wasn't, for once, dressed in an animal sweater, but was instead wearing jeans and a black shirt. Maybe it was the way the street lights reflected off the sparkle in her brown eyes. Or maybe it was the way Rachel would chew her lip when she was deep in thought, seeming to consider with utmost care every question Quinn put to her.

And maybe it was the way that Quinn wanted to know everything about her, despite how much the other girl talked: what she liked, what she didn't like, what classes she was taking, what she wanted to do after college, what her fathers were like, what life had been like for her growing up in Lima…

Whatever it was, though Quinn's ears were _mildly_ tuning Rachel out even as she somehow managed to hang on every word, the rest of her was aware – painfully aware – of the young woman striding purposefully next to her.

"I can't believe I didn't know you sing," Quinn offered weakly, then immediately berated herself for such a dumb comment.

But Rachel just smiled and laughed a little. "It's okay, Quinn, we only have one class together. I can't expect you to know everything about me after just ninety minutes of contact two days a week."

They fell into silence then, Quinn thinking, regretfully, that she hadn't even really had contact with Rachel outside of what had happened that week. She'd been trying not to think about it, because after 12 years of dealing, she knew that dwelling on things made them worse. Still, the one thing she couldn't get out of her mind was the way Rachel's hand had felt on her back, small but gentle.

Santana kept glancing back at her and each time Quinn would just shake her head, wanting to tell her sister to quit worrying, but knowing it was futile. Asking for Santana not to worry about her was like asking their family to not be Catholic – impossible.

But at the same time, Santana seemed to be just as distracted by the tall blonde walking next to her as Quinn was by Rachel. Brittany was sweet, Quinn thought; almost too sweet, but she could tell from the moment Brittany had bounded into the coffee shop ahead of Rachel and dragged both Santana and Quinn out by the hand, towards the direction of the bar, that every ounce of sweetness and light in her was genuine. Brittany was wearing jeans too, that seemed to hug every curve, every inch of her long dancer's legs, along with another tank top that (mercifully, Quinn thought) was devoid of animals and a plain, simple blue.

Quinn felt painfully overdressed in her blue dress with the white cardigan, and Santana had teased her saying that she looked more like she was going to Mass than out drinking, but Quinn had retorted that she wouldn't be drinking anyway, _someone_ needed to make sure her sister got home in one piece. Santana just rolled her eyes.

And Rachel? Rachel had taken one look at Quinn and smiled, saying quietly, "You look lovely in blue, Quinn. It brings out your eyes, somehow."

Brittany and Santana used their fakes to get into the bar and headed straight for the bartender, while Rachel and Quinn accepted the stamps on their hands with grins at each other, moving to grab a table for the four of them in the back corner.

Mike's wasn't a dive but it wasn't upscale, either; it was somewhere in the middle, where you wouldn't find peanut shells on the floor but there wouldn't be cocktail napkins with your drinks. Instead, Santana and Brittany plunked their beers onto the table and handed Rachel a water and Quinn a Coke before seating themselves across from the two girls.

"Not bad," Santana said over the music thumping through the speaker system. "I guess you were right."

"Right?" Brittany said.

"Sometimes you just want to sit in the back corner of a bar and drink a beer." Santana grinned at Brittany before downing half of hers in one gulp, and Brittany laughed.

"I like your style."

"Get a room, already, you two," Rachel joked, laughing, and Brittany smirked.

Quinn laughed as Rachel bumped her shoulder, tipping her head at her sister, who was desperately trying not to appear embarrassed under the dim light of the bar, and failing miserably. Quinn felt light, happy, dizzy with whatever light floral fragrance Rachel was wearing and the nearness of the other girl, an excitement fluttering in Quinn's chest that she hadn't felt in years.

It felt a lot like… like she _liked_ Rachel.

A lot.

She was smiling to herself, thinking that she hadn't been this happy in a while, and she reached her hand out for the bottle of soda in front of her. But she misjudged and her fingers hit the neck of the glass, tipping it over. Santana gave a shriek as the soda began flowing over the table towards her, and Rachel rolled her eyes.

"It's just _Coke_, Santana, not acid. Quinn, can you hand me those napkins over there? Quinn? Quinn, are you okay?"

But Quinn had frozen to her spot, eyes wide and unfocused.

"_God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food. Through His love we all are fed; give us this day our daily bread. Amen."_

_She unfolded her hands and glanced straight up into brown eyes; her father smiled and Quinn smiled back, settling against the chair and trying not to kick her feet. All around her at the table, her parents' guests were also sharing smiles, marveling at the sweet, polite _perfectness_ of the Fabrays' six-year-old daughter._

_Everything was _perfect_. Russell Fabray was in his suit, calm but appropriately jovial as he had walked around the parlor serving drinks and cracking jokes with everyone. Judy was 1950s-advertisement _perfect_, down to the pearls around her neck, as she entertained the wives from her church club and kept a watchful eye on the little girl who sat primly on a chair. Quinn had answered every question about school or "Was she a good girl?" with the correct "Yes, sir, no, ma'am," ever-cognizant of the looks both her parents would cast her way. Not one curl of her blonde hair was out of place; her lace socks were folded on her ankles just as they should be; each ruffle of her white dress was in place, exactly where it should be._

_And then Daddy had picked her up and carried her into the dining room. Quinn had been surprised; usually she'd eat dinner with Mrs. Reynolds, their housekeeper, but Daddy had happily told their guests "We've got a little princess joining us today, I hope no one minds?"_

_And of course, no one minded. No one _ever_ minded a suggestion by Russell Fabray, darling of the secular corporate and Baptist church world. _

_She felt proud, sitting next to her mother as Daddy served the turkey and Judy cut it into pieces small enough for her. She was a big girl. Big enough to sit at the adults' table on Thanksgiving instead of the kitchen, big enough to eat her food off the good china instead of a plastic plate. Big enough to have her Daddy smile at her with a twinkle in his eyes, instead of that _other_ way; big enough to reach for the milk that Daddy had poured into a wine glass just for her, big enough for her fingers to…_

_Knock against the glass._

_And she felt small, so utterly, terribly small, watching the glass tip over as if in slow-motion, watching the delicate rim shatter against the table and the milk flow onto the cloth, spreading ever wider and bigger…_

_And then the world was silent, devoid of conversation or laughter, nothing except the sound of her quickening breath and a voice – her mother's – to her right, nervous and mournful._

"_Oh, _Quinn_."_

"_Well," Russell Fabray boomed, and Quinn jumped with a squeak. "It seems perhaps my little princess is still a little too young to sit at the big table." The guests laughed, Mrs. Fabray quickly mopping up the mess with hers and Quinn's napkins. Russell swept his daughter up into his arms and she winced as he held tightly – a little too tightly._

"_And if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to tuck her into bed and be right back."_

_Over his shoulder as Quinn's father walked up the stairs with her, Quinn caught sight of her mother's blue eyes, shining with unshed tears, and Quinn whimpered, burying her face against his suit and whispering what she hoped, in her little six year old mind, would earn her a reprieve._

"_Daddy, I'm sorry…"_

_At the end of the Fabray Thanksgiving dinner table, a man looking and feeling terribly out of place fumbled in his seat. He knew he wasn't what the Fabrays – or their other guests – were used to; Russell only invited his mechanic to Thanksgiving dinner because of the discount he got after a fender-bender in the parking lot of his office building. (That assistant had been fired the next day, Fabray had confided in him, a smile like the Cheshire cat on his face. Predatory.) Conversation had resumed but his mind was on three things: one, the little boy that he had left at home with his grandmother; two, the wife he had buried less than four months earlier; and three, the uneasiness that was rising up in his stomach._

_She looked like a little doll, he thought, as he was unable to refocus on the plate before him, piled high as it was with, he assumed, the most expensive foods that money could buy. They'd even had caviar as an appetizer, which to him both looked and tasted like what he imagined cat food would. Instead, he couldn't stop thinking about the little girl, and the hazel eyes that had stared at her mother over her father's shoulder. In those eyes, he'd seen something he didn't think he'd ever seen before in a child._

_Complete, abject terror._

_And when Russell Fabray had lifted his daughter out of her chair, his mechanic had seen something else, something that had him standing up from his seat finally, and saying politely to Mrs. Fabray, "If you'll excuse me, I need to call my son."_

_But yes, he thought as he walked out to the parlor, cell phone in hand, she looked like a doll. A doll with perfectly curled blonde hair, wearing a white lacy dress that had ridden up on her thighs when her father had picked – no, _seized_ – her up._

_And his mechanic had seen bruises._

_He could hear the sounds coming from upstairs, then, as if from behind a door closed shut and locked tightly against the rest of the world: muffled blows and the soft, muted pleadings of a little girl, and he swallowed down the revulsion in his throat, thumb hovering over the keypad of his phone._

_Stay out of it, he told himself. Stay out of it. He had just lost his wife; he really couldn't afford to lose Fabray's business, and his boy…_

_He sighed. His boy wasn't like the rest. Already he was being teased for being smaller, softer, for loving The Sound of Music when most kids – most _boys – _his age were loving video games or slugging it out on the football field. He was sensitive, and was still struggling with the fact that they'd buried his mother just recently after the cancer had taken everything she'd had. _

_He needed to protect his boy._

_But the blows from upstairs seemed to be louder, the pleadings fading away into wordless, wrenching sobs and for a moment, he wondered who would protect his boy, if _not_ for him? And this little girl… who was protecting her?_

_He shook his head, and with a deep breath, Burt Hummel dialed._

"_Allen County 911, what is your emergency?"_

Quinn was startled out of her memory by a warm, gentle hand on hers. Relief flooded her and she opened her eyes, smiling down and expecting to see Santana's hand, but she blinked in confusion. The skin was tan, but the fingers that curled around hers were small and dainty, with perfectly clipped nails, unlike Santana's jagged ones, bitten off after too many late nights cramming for tests.

Quinn raised her eyes until she met the owner of that hand.

Rachel.

"I'm sorry," Quinn said. "I didn't mean to spill it, I'll clean it up, I…" She stopped, faltering, expecting to see anger and confused by the utterly gentle and calm look on Rachel's face.

She could see Santana watching them both, her body taut like a snake, ready to strike at the first sign of trouble.

But Rachel just smiled, brown eyes centered on Quinn, unwavering.

"You know," she said conversationally, holding softly to Quinn while her other hand used a towel brought by the bartender to mop up the drink. "When I was ten years old, I was celebrating Christmas with my grandparents – the Christian ones, obviously, not the Jewish ones – and my grandfather decided that I should have my first taste of wine. My grandmother objected, but my granddad just laughed and gave me some red wine – _extremely_ watered down."

Rachel's voice was so low that Quinn could barely hear it, but still, somehow, it was as if hers was the only voice in the crowded room. She concentrated herself on the smooth motion of Rachel's left thumb stroking over her own knuckles, on the quick work Rachel made of the mess on the table.

"I was so excited, sitting at the adults' table, even though my feet didn't reach the floor—"

"Bet they still don't," Santana muttered, but was silenced when Brittany giggled and threw her arm around the woman's shoulders, hushing her. Quinn smirked a little, seeing a deep flush rise on her sister's cheeks, before turning her attention back to Rachel.

Rachel finished wiping up the table, and then drew her other hand back to Quinn's, cupping it in both of hers. "So I sat up straight, ready to be a big girl, when Granddad put that wine in front of me. I reached out for it, my hand shaking… and promptly knocked the glass over. All over grandma's best, _white_ lace tablecloth."

Quinn gasped, her eyes widening. The corner of Rachel's mouth turned up a little.

"What… what happened?" Quinn asked.

She closed her eyes then, against the onslaught of images. She couldn't imagine it – little ten year old Rachel, being punished… being _beaten_ for it. A tiny Rachel's face, twisted with fear and pain, cries going unheard and echoing into the night…

There was a squeeze to her fingers, and Quinn opened her eyes to see Rachel still smiling at her.

"I burst into tears, because my grandma was always talking about how a proper lady should behave, and I just _knew_ I was going to catch it for ruining her favorite tablecloth that her _mother_ had given her, and her grandmother before that."

Quinn nodded miserably. "I don't think I want to hear—"

"But," Rachel interrupted, squeezing Quinn's hand again. "While my granddad grabbed a washcloth to soak up that horrible red stain that to me seemed to be the most gigantic thing in the world, my grandma picked me up and snuggled me. And you know what she said?"

Quinn shook her head.

"What is this?" Santana wondered. "A Hallmark commercial?"

"Santana, shut up," Quinn said, and her sister gaped at her.

"Might want to do what she says," Brittany mused.

"Both of you are traitors," Santana said sullenly.

"I barely know you."

"Can I get on with this story?" Rachel said, exasperated. "It _does_ have a point, you know."

Quinn's fingers tightened around Rachel's. "Please?"

"Come on," Brittany said, pushing at Santana until the woman slid out from the table. "Let's go get another drink."

"But I—"

"Let's _go_," Brittany said, and grabbed Santana's hand, pulling her towards the bar.

"Finally," Rachel breathed, shaking her head.

Quinn stared off after Santana, feeling that old familiar panic rise up within her, until a gentle tug on her hand made her glance at Rachel.

"My grandma hugged me," Rachel said simply. "She hugged me and said that the stain was a _good thing_."

"A good thing?" Quinn arched an eyebrow. Her fa—_Russell Fabray_ would have never said that a stain was a _good thing_.

"A good thing," Rachel repeated. "Because she said that stain on a fifty-year-old tablecloth was proof that a family had used it. And you know," Rachel said, her eyes taking on a faraway look at the memory, "She pulled that tablecloth with its hideous red stain out with her best china for every holiday dinner until she died. And now it's mine."

"Oh." Quinn nodded, staring down at her hand clasped in Rachel's, and was momentarily jealous of the small girl who had a family that didn't care about reputation, about names, about staining more than just a tablecloth.

"Quinn."

Hazel eyes met brown, and there was something in those eyes that Quinn had never seen before, and she felt herself tremble. She stared down at her lap again.

"It happens, okay?" Rachel said softly, thumb still trailing over Quinn's knuckles in slow circles. "It happens, and _it's all right_. Okay?"

She ducked her head to meet Quinn's eyes once more.

Quinn took a deep breath, and nodded. "Okay."

How, she wondered, had Rachel known? And what's more, how had she _understood_?

It was easy, this talking to Rachel… and for a moment, Quinn was terrified.

"Okay." Rachel's smile was beaming, and Quinn's breath caught in her throat. Seeing that Santana and Brittany were on their way back to the table, beers in hand, Rachel released Quinn's hand and straightened up, a determined look in her eyes.

"It's time for me to sing," she said. "You'll listen?"

Quinn grinned. "I'm not sure there's any way I couldn't listen to you, since you'll be the only one singing?" She laughed as Rachel huffed. "I'll listen. I want to hear how good you are."

"Oh, I'm always good," Rachel shot cheekily, over her shoulder, and Quinn swallowed hard, feeling the heat rise to her face.

"She really is good," Brittany said, sliding into the her seat across from Quinn and tugging Santana to sit next to her, even though the Latina had moved to Quinn's side. Santana scowled, and Quinn giggled.

"At singing, though," Brittany added thoughtfully. "I've tried to find out if she sounds good at other things, but Rachel says she's not interested."

Santana's eyes narrowed and Quinn marveled at the spark of jealousy that rose up within the brown darkness, before she was distracted by Rachel stepping up on to the stage at the front of the bar. The stage was really nothing more than a wooden platform that looked less safe than Quinn was comfortable with (and she momentarily wondered why she cared), a single microphone set up in the center, and a stereo – for backing tracks, she guessed – set off to one side.

Rachel didn't introduce herself; it wouldn't have mattered since most of the patrons didn't even notice she had stepped up to the mic, that same look of steely determination in her eyes. But her gaze met Quinn's and it softened as she smiled.

Quinn smiled back as the gentle opening notes of a piano began to course over the talk of the people around them.

_There's a harvest each Saturday night  
At the bars filled with perfume and hitching a ride  
A place you can stand for one night and get gone_

Quinn blinked in shock. Rachel's eyes had closed, and she was holding on to the mic with her hand, oblivious to everything around her, concentrating on carrying her voice over the crowd, over the noise of glassing clinking, laughter, and conversation.

And her voice… was gorgeous.

"Dance with me?"

Quinn looked over her shoulder at Brittany, who was smiling at Santana hopefully.

Santana, for her part, looked uncomfortable. "This isn't even a gay bar," she said.

"Who said anything about being gay?" Brittany gently pushed Santana to a standing position, and then took her hand. "Just two friends sharing a dance, hmm?"

Quinn smiled and shrugged her shoulders as Santana stared at her helplessly before Brittany led her to the dance floor. She looked back at Rachel, who was now singing with her eyes open, staring directly at Quinn.

_It's clear this conversation ain't doing a thing  
Cause these boys only listen to me when I sing  
And I don't feel like singing tonight  
All the same songs_

Brittany's arms were around Santana's waist; Santana was keeping space between them as they swayed together in the center of the floor, but by the way they were looking at each other and laughing together, Quinn figured that space wouldn't last very long. She fought down the pang of envy and met Rachel's gaze.

Rachel's voice, to Quinn, was like a cup of hot chocolate in Mami's kitchen after walking home from school during a freezing Lima winter. It warmed her, spreading through chest, and it seemed even her fingertips were alight with the way Rachel sounded out each note, pitch perfect, soaring and passionate. Quinn watched her, taking in the changing expressions on Rachel's face, the way her body moved in rhythm with the song and the way she caressed the mic as if it were a lover, and Quinn Lopez realized what it all meant.

Rachel Berry was beautiful. And Rachel Berry was born to sing.

_Here in these deep city lights  
Girl could get lost tonight  
I'm finding every reason to be gone  
Nothing here to hold on to  
Could I hold you?_

The space had diminished between Santana and Brittany. Rachel's next two songs were slow; Brittany's dance was slower, and Santana had her head rested on the girl's shoulder. Quinn felt that familiar ache in her palms, the twinge of pain that spoke to her of loneliness, of the desire to lay her head on someone's shoulder and let it all _go_.

But she couldn't. She knew she never could. They'd never understand.

Rachel ended her set to mild applause – the most enthusiastic of which was Quinn's – then as the bartender switched the music back to its regular, thumping bass, she grabbed a water bottle and headed off stage towards the back of the bar. Santana and Brittany came giggling back to the table and Quinn, suddenly feeling like a third wheel, muttered something about having to go to the bathroom and got up.

She met Rachel in the hallway outside of the bathroom. Rachel smiled at her. "It's locked," she said, gesturing towards the door. "I hope whoever is inside is using it for actual business and not for… well, couple activities."

Quinn flushed crimson. "They do that in there?" She squeaked.

Rachel laughed. "You've been to clubs before, haven't you?"

Quinn clenched her teeth, unwilling to remember anything about her last few club excursions. She simply nodded.

"Hey," Rachel said, sounding concerned, her brow furrowed over dark eyes. She reached out and touched Quinn's upper arm gently. "I didn't mean—"

"You sounded amazing," Quinn blurted out. _Smooth, Lopez_, she instantly berated herself, and glanced down at the dirty wooden floor. "I mean, you sing… beautifully."

"You think so?"

Quinn glanced back up, catching the uncertainty in the little diva's (well, she was reminding Quinn of a diva, anyway) voice. She tilted her head, and then nodded. "Yeah, I really do. You were just… you were amazing up there, Rach."

_Rach_.

Once again her smile was blinding, and Quinn felt her heart skip.

"Thank you," Rachel said, her eyes trained on her shoes and a flush spreading over her cheeks.

"Sure," Quinn responded, just as the door to the bathroom opened and a flustered-looking young woman – followed by a man holding tightly to her hand – exited. Rachel sighed and caught Quinn's eye.

"Guess I won't be going in there," she said with a grin.

"Guess not," Quinn grinned back.

They fell into silence then, not sure what to say and neither of them wanting to go back to the tables.

Finally, Rachel said, "Quinn, I—"

"We should—"

They laughed. "You first," Quinn said.

Rachel nodded. "Quinn, I… I don't know what happened the other day, at school."

Quinn tensed, briefly closing her eyes and trying to fight the sudden wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm her.

"Quinn." Rachel's fingers were on her wrist; her voice was cautious. "I don't know what happened, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But… if you ever need to talk, you can talk to me, okay? About anything."

Quinn let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding; her muscles relaxed and she forced a smile to her face. "Everything's fine, Rachel. I just got a little overwhelmed that day. But thank you, really."

Rachel seemed doubtful, but she nodded slowly. "Of course."

"We should probably get back to Brittany and Santana."

"You know, Quinn… I like you."

She blinked in surprise at the news. "I… I like you too."

"And I meant what I said."

"What you said?"

"To Brittany." Quinn shot Rachel a confused look, and the petite singer blushed an even deeper shade of red, if that was possible.

"You really are very pretty, Quinn."

"Oh." She rolled her eyes; apparently her usual charm was going to be non-existent tonight. But she took a deep breath, noticing that Rachel had shuffled a little closer, so that their arms were touching as they both leaned against the wall.

"I think _you're_ pretty," Quinn confessed, not looking at her.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Really, _really_ pretty."

It sounded to her like the dumbest thing in the world, and evidently Rachel thought so too, because she'd pushed off the wall with her foot, and Quinn closed her eyes against the brief disappointment within her, only to open them again when she felt Rachel's hand, soft and gentle on her shoulder.

"Quinn…" Rachel's teeth worried her lower lip as she hesitated.

"Yes?" Quinn prompted.

"Would it be…" Rachel's eyes darted to the left and right before settling back on Quinn. "Would it be all right if I kissed you?"

_No_, Quinn thought. _No, it wouldn't be all right. I'm damaged goods and this won't end well and you don't want me._

It was on the tip of her tongue, the very tip of her tongue to spill out all the thoughts racing through her mind, to tell Rachel to run like hell away from her and never look back.

But Rachel was _beautiful _in the crappy backlight of the bar, and the ache in her palms was there, that hope, that persistent "what if," even as her brain was screaming at Quinn to _get out of there_.

Instead, she nodded. "Yeah," she breathed. "Yeah, it would."

"Oh, okay." Rachel seemed a little shocked but she shuffled closer, her hand moving from Quinn's shoulder to gently cup her cheek. "Okay."

"Okay…"

It only took an instant for an achingly soft pressure to descend onto Quinn's lips as Rachel pushed herself up on her toes and kissed her, and it ended in an instant when Rachel rocked back onto her heels and stared up at Quinn, a look of uncertainty combined with want on her face.

And Quinn wanted to do it again, because Rachel had tasted like sweet and musk and something tart that she couldn't put her finger on. So her hand came up to softly wind through brown locks as this time, Quinn bent low and Rachel tilted up, their mouths meeting halfway.

Quinn set the pace and Rachel let her, slow, ever so slow until Quinn realized that Rachel's mouth had opened slightly, granting her access, and when Quinn's tongue slipped inside she moaned slightly, giggling when she felt Rachel smile against her mouth.

"You're beautiful," Rachel managed to whisper, kissing her lightly. "You really are."

Quinn shook her head, aware of nothing else - even the people moving around them to get to the bathroom – but Rachel's lips on hers, gentle and inviting. Rachel's warm breath, Rachel's hand against her cheek, moving tenderly over her shoulder, down her arm, coming to rest snugly against Quinn's waist…

Quinn jerked away.

"Quinn?" Rachel's voice was small, worried. "Quinn, did I do something wrong?"

Her head was spinning, the blood pounding in her temple and she could feel her fists begin to clench.

"No," Quinn choked out. "No, you didn't… I… It's me, it's all… I have to… Rachel, I'm sorry."

She stumbled away, Rachel following after her, calling her name, but Quinn ignored her. She saw Brittany and Santana at the table, sitting close, with Santana's forehead nearly resting against the taller blonde girl's. They moved closer, and Quinn whimpered, knowing that Santana was never going to forgive her for this, but she knew Rachel was right behind her.

"We have to go."

Santana pulled back from Brittany, though their lips had been mere centimeters apart; her darkened eyes widened upon seeing the look on her sister's face.

"What did she do?"

"Nothing, we just, I need to… I have to… We have to go!"

Quinn spun on her heel, hugging herself, and ran out of the bar and out onto the street, turning in the direction of home.

"Quinn!"

She ignored the calls again.

"Quinn, what the hell is going on? Come on, talk to me!"

She shook her head, still holding herself, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she walked away from Santana into the crisp New York night, Rachel's voice still echoing in her ears.

_Here in these deep city lights… a girl could get lost tonight…_


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N: I am so sorry that it has been 4 months since my last update. Suffice it to say that I'm just now getting back into the writing groove. Thank you so much to those of you who have stuck around, and I hope you won't have to wait half as long for chapter 7.**

* * *

"I thought you liked me."

Quinn felt the familiar squeeze of her chest, the tingle in her fingertips that told her _it_ was happening, and she took a deep breath, fighting it. _Down, me_, she thought, and almost laughed at the absurdity of it. She turned her attention back to the brunette, who was still standing next to her desk even though the rest of the class had emptied out.

Rachel's voice was small and soft, a look of confusion and regret on her face. "I mean I know I probably moved too fast, and I'm sorry, Quinn, but I don't understand why we can't talk and—"

"Because I don't want to talk," Quinn said again, for what seemed to be the hundredth time since the night at the bar. "I don't want to talk about it, at all."

"Please?" Rachel tried once more. "We can just—"

"Rachel." Quinn took another deep breath and calmed the tell-tale racing of her heart by busying herself with putting her books in her bag. She stood up, shouldering the bag, and glanced at the smaller girl.

"Go home, Rachel," Quinn said gently. "This… isn't going to work. Go home, and forget about what happened in the bar." She hesitated, and then delivered the final blow. "I have."

She left Rachel behind in the classroom, the lie still stinging her lips.

She hadn't forgotten. The memory of it was still fresh in Quinn's mind as she walked slowly through the shortcut in the park, ignoring the laughter and calls of the children playing. She dropped to a bench and closed her eyes, raising her face to the sunlight, and sighed.

Rachel. Everything about her would flood Quinn at the worst moments in the two weeks since they had gone out to the bar. Moments when she didn't want to think about her: her smile, her laughter, the way her arms had felt around Quinn. The way her lips had kissed her, gentle and inquisitive and searching. Yet intertwining recklessly with the phantom touch of Rachel was another: the harsh and exacting caress of someone Quinn never could remember. The face was grey, featureless, nothing. The monster on the bed instead of under, and the only protection was a dark closet at the end of the hall. Quinn and her family had their suspicions, but the hidden monster refused to rear his head, and Quinn (and her therapists) was grateful for it.

"_I want to watch SpongeBob!"_

"_No, we've watched cartoons for two hours! The game is on; I don't want to miss it _again_."_

"'_toons! 'toons!"_

_Her pajamas were yellow. Sunny yellow, like the dress she'd worn on that day when the social worker – Quinn had forgotten her name by now, a year later – had brought her to the Lopez household. Soft and warm. Mami Lopez had pulled her blonde hair into a braided ponytail that almost reached the middle of her back, then sent her off to the living room with a smile and a kiss on her cheek. Now Quinn was listening as Santana and her brothers argued about what to watch before bed._

"_Okay, okay," Papi Lopez finally broke in, holding his hands up as if in surrender. "Santana wants to watch cartoons, as does Miguel." The two-year-old grinned and kicked his feet. Papa laughed. "And Juan wants to watch the game."_

"_I haven't gotten to watch the games this week, and it's the playoffs!"_

"_Okay, okay," Papi said again. "But there's one who hasn't said what she wants to watch yet." He looked over at Quinn, sitting next to Santana, and she tensed despite his bright smile._

"_And you, little Quinn, what do you want to watch on TV tonight?"_

_Quinn's eyes widened. Daddy usually never let her watch TV before bed. And if he had, it would be a show of his choosing, usually Veggie Tales or something meant to "make her a good little girl," he would say sternly, glaring at her until she felt as if Daddy was God Himself come to judge her. And she knew she was bad. _

_Papi noticed her face, an open book of wonder coupled with fear, and he sighed inwardly. Quinn had adjusted relatively well to everyone in the household… except him. It had taken a couple of months but Quinn had gradually learned that she could be a little girl that could laugh and play and talk. She also learned (thanks to Santana) all the trouble they could get into, from hiding little Miguel's toys to antagonizing the teacher in their shared class. But there were things that were harder to change about Quinn, such as the way she'd accidentally knocked her plate off the table, and when Papi had gotten up to clean the mess, the little girl had shrieked in terror and backed up against the wall, hands protectively held over her bottom._

_And it was Mami Lopez who tucked Quinn into bed every night and gave her the good night kiss, minus her husband. It was tradition in the household that both Lopez parents said prayers and good nights with all their children, even Anna and Juan, who were in high school and college. But the first time Papi had entered into Quinn's bedroom with Mami, the little girl had hidden herself under the covers, shaking with fright, until Papi had excused himself. After that, only Mami was allowed into Quinn's room._

_Still, Papi's eyes were kind as he looked at Quinn, waiting expectantly for her answer. She chewed her lower lip and glanced at Santana, who grinned. Quinn grinned back._

"_Cartoons!"_

_Santana crowed with happiness and Juan let out an exasperated sigh, going off to read while muttering something about the house needing more than one TV, because at least then he could play video games. Papi switched the channel to SpongeBob and Santana settled onto the couch with Miguel on her lap, giggling with him._

_But Quinn was staring at Papi, who was staring back, not saying anything. In her little seven-year-old mind, Quinn was remembering harshness, an iron hand that had descended on her often, meant to correct but never soothe. But then there was this other daddy, this daddy who swept Santana in his arms every time he came home from his practice, who laughed as even his oldest kids crowded around him for a hug. Who, each time Quinn accidentally made a mess at dinner because she was nervous and she didn't understand the loud, sometimes in Spanish, boisterous and happy talk of this _family_, only calmly cleaned it up and sometimes gently patted her head. The man who hovered in her doorway as Mami helped her say her prayers, but he never came in, just blew her a kiss and said goodnight before waving and going off to bed himself._

_So, a year after she had joined the Lopez household, Quinn found herself climbing off the couch and padding with bare feet over to Papi. He smiled down at her, his eyes lighting up._

"_Okay, _mija_?" he asked quietly._

_She nodded, her thumb finding its way into her mouth in her anxiety. Papi reached out carefully and extracted her hand, still smiling._

_He waited._

_Quinn smiled back._

_In seconds she was in his lap, her head resting against his broad chest, and she could feel the strong boom-boom-boom of his heart. His arms folded around her, loosely, not clutching, and Quinn smiled again, snuggling closer to him._

_That night, Mami Lopez stood in the doorway and wiped away the tears on her cheeks as Papi tucked a sleeping Quinn into her bed and kissed her forehead. Her husband rejoined her and slipped an arm around her shoulders._

"_I want her," his wife said simply._

_The Lopez patriarch thought for a moment, then nodded._

"_We'll file the papers tomorrow."_

Trust. That endless enigma, something that Quinn had fought hard to maintain. Trust in her parents, in her brothers and sisters, trust in Santana. And now… Rachel? As hard as Quinn had tried to forget the time at the bar, something wouldn't let her, and she felt powerless to understand why.

"Maybe I should just talk to her," Quinn said to Santana later that night.

"And tell her what?" Santana glanced over at her sister, who was sitting at the kitchen table while she made dinner.

"I don't know. That it was too fast, that I got scared, that I…"

"That you were afraid you were going to switch again? That you have multiples? We've been over this, Quinn."

Quinn narrowed her eyes, folding her arms across her chest and pushing against the table with her foot, tipping her chair backwards. "Yeah, I get it. No one can deal with multiples. No one can deal with someone who is damaged. No one can deal with a fuck-up."

"That's not what I meant," Santana sighed. She checked the sauce on the stove, and then sat down in the chair across from Quinn.

"But you're right. No one can deal with multiples—"

"They do it all the time, San. Dr. Jones said so. She said it's hard, but that people… people like me can have relationships."

"Because they've gone so well before, haven't they?" Santana retorted.

Quinn winced, and in an instant her sister's hand closed over hers. "I didn't mean that," Santana said quietly. "But you've been hurt so many times, Q, I don't want that for you. Not ever again."

"So you're saying that it's not the multiples they couldn't deal with… it was me."

"_No_. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that the track record isn't very good, Quinn, and I don't think Rachel would be any better."

"Why not?" Quinn thumped her chair back into position and withdrew her hand from Santana's. "Why wouldn't Rachel be different? She _is_ different, San, I can tell. I mean, she has gay dads so… okay, so that's not really the same thing as _me_, but… she's just… different."

Santana grinned a little. "How's she different?"

Quinn felt herself flush red and she glanced into her glass of tea, not meeting Santana's eyes. "She just… is."

It was Rachel's _eyes_. How could Quinn explain that to Santana, how could she tell her sister that something about Rachel's brown eyes made Quinn want to _know_ her, in every sense of the word? Rachel was gorgeous, there was no denying that, and more than once Quinn wondered what it would be like to make love to her, to kiss her and make her sigh with happiness and _need_. But beyond that, Quinn couldn't explain the ease she felt around Rachel, the desire to just… tell her _everything_, and that unnerved her. It was as if… Rachel knew. That anything Quinn would tell her Rachel would already somehow know. And even though Quinn knew that was impossible, it still rattled her, every time Rachel would turn and glance at Quinn over her shoulder in class, a wounded look in her eyes that made Quinn want to kill whoever it was that had hurt her.

Even if it was herself.

"Uh-huh. I'm not buying it." Santana's voice broke into her sister's thoughts.

"Oh yeah?" Quinn quirked an eyebrow, a mischievous glint to her eyes. "What about _Brittany_?"

Then it was Santana's turn to blush, and Quinn laughed. Her sister had been out with the blonde dancer every night that week except for Thursday, when it had stormed. Quinn knew that Brittany had stayed over at their apartment one night, knew because she'd gone into the bedroom to wake her sister up as she did every morning, only to have Santana sit bolt upright in the bed, hair disheveled, no shirt, and an embarrassed look on her face. The fidgeting lump next to her under the blankets had told Quinn her sister wasn't alone, and she just smirked and shut the door.

"That's different," Santana muttered.

"How is that different?"

"It just is!" Santana slammed the pot back onto the stove a little too hard, splattering red sauce on the refrigerator. "Shit," she swore. She wiped away the mess and glowered at her sister, who was giggling. Santana shook her head and cracked a smile.

"You know how when you're sitting somewhere, like at the coffee shop, and you're near the door so that in the winter, every time someone opens the door, you get hit by this wave of cold air?" Quinn arched an eyebrow at her sister, and Santana stuck her tongue out. "Go with it, I have a point."

"Okay," Quinn said, grinning. "Go on."

"So you get hit by this cold air, and you can't do anything but sit there and wait to get warm again." Quinn nodded, and Santana turned back to the stove, pouring the sauce over the pasta and stirring.

"Brittany's that cold air. But she's warm at the same time." Santana pursed her lips, catching Quinn's amused expression. "Shut the fuck up, Quinn. I'm not a fucking poet."

"No, but you should be," Quinn laughed, holding her hands to her heart in a mock swoon. "Oh, Brittany, how do I love thee, let me count the ways… one orgasm, two orgasms…"

"Hey!" Santana reached out and tapped Quinn's forehead with her finger. "Shut up."

Quinn picked up her napkin and waved it like a flag of surrender, and Santana rolled her eyes.

"Besides, we've lost count."

"Ew! Did not want to know that." Quinn sobered up and glanced out the window; the sun was just going down and it looked like rain outside. She mentally crossed her fingers and hoped not.

"Why do you get to have someone and I don't?" she wondered aloud. "What's so wrong with me?"

Santana sighed and placed a plate of food in front of her sister then sat across from her. "There's _nothing_ wrong with you," she pointed out, "And you know that, so don't pull that shit. Look. It's not that I don't like Rachel. I do… kind of. When she's not laughing. Or speaking. When she sings she's not so bad, if she'd sing some good shit instead of all that crap from musicals."

Quinn glared, and Santana smirked before continuing.

"I'm tired, Q," Santana admitted with a shrug. "You know my classes are kicking my ass and work is just… nuts lately with all the new patients Abrams is taking on. Brittany makes me forget all that. And I can tell that Rachel… makes you forget stuff, too."

Quinn nodded.

"But I'm worried. I mean, after what happened at the bar, you've been walking around like a ghost for two weeks. Beth has come out twice, and Sunday it wasn't even raining. "

Quinn glanced down at her plate, and Santana patted her hand. "Look at me."

Quinn met her sister's eyes.

"Q, what's Rachel going to do when she finds out about Beth? I mean, _really_ finds out? What's she going to do when she finds out that you don't just switch to a 6 year old, but that that 6 year old gets terrified, that she sometimes has temper tantrums where all she does is scream and cry and you'd best stay out of her way because she can kick the shit out of you?"

"I get it," Quinn said through gritted teeth.

"No, you _don't_," Santana said. "You're not on the outside looking in like the rest of us, Quinn. I've seen you as Beth; I've seen you as Puck. I've seen you at your best and I've seen you at your holy shit oh my god what the fuck _worst_. I can handle it because I've had twelve years of it. But I've also seen you get crushes on people, people who have left the minute they find out that there's something different about you."

Santana paused, and then shrugged again. "Rachel's going to do the same thing. I can guarantee you. She's not going to be able to handle it."

"You don't know that," Quinn said petulantly. "She's different."

"So you say. But I think you're wrong, and I'm just trying to protect you from getting hurt yet again."

"What if I prove _you_ wrong?" Quinn countered.

Santana took a bite of her pasta, considering this. She shook her head. "You won't."

Her sister's words rang in her ears even as Quinn waited for the rest of her class to disperse two days later, before going up to Rachel's desk and standing, awkwardly.

Rachel placed her books in her argyle backpack maddeningly slowly before standing up and turning to Quinn.

"Yes?" she queried, rather coldly, and Quinn winced.

"Walk with me?" she offered. "Unless you have somewhere else you need to be?"

"I have to catch the bus home in an hour," Rachel said as she followed Quinn out of the classroom and the building into the sunshine. "But until then, you have my full attention, though I am not altogether sure I am interested in what you have to say, especially since you said you have forgotten all—"

"I didn't forget," Quinn blurted, and Rachel stilled. Quinn took the moment as they stared at each other to notice Rachel's hair, curled in soft waves over her shoulders, and the simple white button-up shirt she wore with a black (incredibly short) skirt. It was understated, not as loud as the usual sweaters and knee-highs she wore, and Quinn found her eyes traveling from Rachel's, down to the legs that seemed impossibly long for such a short person. Quinn felt herself blush.

"Quinn?"

"I didn't forget," she said again, meeting Rachel's gaze again. "I want to, though." She caught the flicker of hurt in Rachel's eyes, and hastened to explain. "I don't like how you make me feel. But that… and everything that happened that night… it was too fast, Rachel. I know I said it was okay, but, I didn't realize until you kissed me how… not-ready I was for it."

"And you couldn't have told me this two weeks ago?" Rachel asked slowly. "I mean, Quinn, I am an adult, and though it may be surprising given my looks and my talent, I _have_ been rejected before. I can handle it."

"That's the thing though, I'm not rejecting you."

They had reached Quinn's park, and Quinn sat on the bench, inviting Rachel to sit with her, but Rachel stood.

"You're not?"

Quinn sighed. "Rachel, how did you know?"

"How did I know what?"

"That night," Quinn started to clarify. "At the bar, when I spilled the drink, how did you know… what might have happened? I never told you, after all."

"No," Rachel shook her head. "But for one thing, I kind of have a sixth sense about these things. About a lot of things, really." Catching Quinn's look, Rachel narrowed her eyes. "It's _true_! It's nothing out of a horror movie or anything but I'm a little bit psychic."

"Okay," Quinn said, a slightly disbelieving tone to her voice.

"But besides that," Rachel huffed, folding her arms across her chest before her expression softened as she glanced down at Quinn. "No one has that sort of a reaction to spilling a drink unless something has happened. No one cries over spilled milk unless there's a reason, Quinn."

Quinn closed her eyes briefly, and nodded. She opened her eyes when she felt Rachel sit on the bench next to her.

"You have a reason?"

"My dad." Quinn swallowed hard, shocked at the ease with which the two words had left her lips.

"Yours and Santana's father did something to you?"

"I'm adopted, remember?" Quinn explained. "I told you that night that Santana's family adopted me when I was eight."

"I forgot, I'm sorry," Rachel said, flushing pink, and Quinn smiled a little.

"I don't expect you to remember everything. Just ninety-five percent of it," she teased, bumping Rachel's shoulder with her own until the smaller girl returned the smile.

"But… my dad. They took me away when I was 6, and then 2 years later San's family adopted me."

"Lucky them," Rachel said.

"Lucky _me_. But that's why…" Quinn paused.

"That's why, what?" Rachel prompted.

"It was too fast. I just really need things to go slow, but I understand if you don't… want that. Because I'm… I'm kind of damaged, Rachel."

"Aren't we all?"

"This isn't a joke, Rach."

"I wasn't making one." Rachel shifted slightly, turning on the bench to look at Quinn.

"You clearly have things in your past that… well, they affect you. Everybody does, Quinn."

"Yeah, but not as bad as I do."

"Like what?"

Quinn shook her head. "I can't… I can't tell you," she confessed.

"So you're a serial killer."

"What?" Quinn gaped. "No!"

"Drug dealer? Assassin? I know, you're a wizard, aren't you? Would you please ask Dumbledore where my letter is, I've been waiting for it since I was eleven."

"Rachel!" Quinn laughed, and Rachel smiled, moving to take Quinn's hand in hers. Quinn glanced down at it and back at Rachel, feeling warmth spread from her fingertips and up her arm at the smaller girl's touch.

"We all have issues," Rachel said seriously. "I'm not a saint, Quinn, and I'm probably not going to understand some of your issues. But I like you, I really like you."

Quinn nodded, curling her fingers around Rachel's. "I like you too, a lot."

Rachel squeezed her hand and stood up. "My bus is going to be here soon so I have to go." She leaned down and kissed Quinn's forehead. "Slow," she said with a firm nod. "We'll start by you not ignoring me in class, how's that?"

Quinn smiled, feeling a blush tint her cheeks at the fact that Rachel had kissed her again, even if it was on her forehead. "Okay."

"Okay." Rachel smiled and started to walk off, but turned around. "Seriously, tell Dumbledore I want my letter."

Quinn just laughed and waved. The entire way home, she felt as if she was walking on air, the smile only leaving her face when she told Santana about her afternoon, and her sister's mouth drew into a set, tight line.

They barely talked for the rest of the night.

The following week wasn't any better, with Quinn starting to spend time with Rachel even on days when they didn't have class, but Santana still refused to talk to her sister about it, changing the subject any time Rachel was brought up. Adding to the stress was that the week after _that_, New York had 3 days of the worst storms ever, and Quinn had to deal with Santana being irritated with her, as well as trying to explain to Rachel that she wasn't able to see her for three days, but not really being able to explain _why_. They were too early into the relationship for either of them to accuse the other of cheating, but Quinn could tell that her paltry excuse of a "stomach virus" wasn't very believable, and the guilt was almost bad enough to make her stop talking to Rachel again altogether.

Only Santana's smirk when Quinn out of frustration let it slip that Rachel was angry at her kept her determined to make it work. She didn't understand why Santana was so hell-bent on the relationship _not_ working, but Quinn wasn't about to just lie down and let it happen. Still, she began to feel as if, little by little, the tight bond she had had with her sister, her best friend since she was six, was beginning to splinter.

Quinn's official "first date" with Rachel was at the bar again, during an open mic night that Rachel had spearheaded and was extremely excited about. Quinn sat at a table in front, just to the left of the stage, watching with a grin as Rachel bounced here and there, checking lighting and sound systems, in general annoying the bar's owners and making the other performers roll their eyes. Quinn couldn't take her eyes off her; Rachel was wearing jeans and a white tank top and it was as if every curve was accentuated by the dim lights of the bar, her brown hair illuminated by the only spotlight that shown down on the stage as she adjusted a microphone. Rachel's head raised and her gaze caught Quinn's; she smiled softly and Quinn smiled back, suddenly feeling self-conscious in her own jeans and a blue tee-shirt that seemed to fit too tightly.

Almost as if she knew – and Quinn was beginning to think that Rachel's claim about the sixth sense was right – Rachel came off the stage and over to Quinn's table, leaning down and brushing their lips together lightly. The last two weeks had seen subtle contact between the two; gentle nudges and playful pokes had given away to holding hands as they walked, Rachel kissing her palm one night when they said goodbye, Quinn kissing her cheek as they sat on the bench in the park. They hadn't had a long, lingering kiss, not like that first night in the bar, but to Quinn, Rachel's gentle pecks on her lips were enough.

Well, they had been enough. Seeing the gentle swell of Rachel's breasts against the tank top as she leaned down to kiss Quinn… well, Quinn realized that she was beginning to want more.

"You look beautiful," Rachel said quietly. "But then, you always do."

Quinn laughed. "You sure know how to woo a girl, Rachel Berry."

"Oh, is that what I've been doing?" Rachel winked. "Wooing you?"

"Well, if you weren't," Quinn said, "I'd love to see what you'd do if you actually were wooing me."

"I don't think you'd be able to handle it." Rachel stuck her tongue out, and then looked back up at the stage as the bartender whistled to get her attention. "You'll listen to me sing?"

"Of course." Quinn grasped Rachel's hand and kissed her knuckles. "You'll be the best, I know you will. Go knock 'em dead, Rach."

Rachel's voice wasn't as soaring as it had been that first night; she sang soft and muted, her eyes locked on Quinn as she did so, and Quinn couldn't help but think, watching her and listening to the song, that for Rachel, everyone else in the bar disappeared, and there was only the two of them, a question hanging in the air.

_Let me raise you up  
Let me be your love  
May I hold you as you fall to sleep?  
When the world is closing in and you can't breathe?  
May I love you?  
May I be your shield?  
When no one can be found  
May I lay you down?_

The air was charged, changing as they walked down the street towards Quinn's apartment, Rachel's fingers entwined with hers. Rachel was riding high on the applause, the two standing ovations she'd received for the first song, the calls for an encore and the catcalls and whistles after the second. Quinn had been the first to her feet each time, a wide smile on her face, clapping as loudly as she could. ("Ladies don't whistle," Mami had said, so she didn't.) Now she watched Rachel with a smile, listening as the girl babbled on about her Broadway dreams, and how she wished a producer or director had been in the audience to offer a deal.

Quinn threw back her head and laughed as Rachel practically danced in the light of the street lamp, then seized her hands and pulled Quinn into an impromptu dance of their own. Rachel's eyes were sparkling, Quinn felt as if her face would split from smiling too much, and in a second her lips were on Rachel's, deep, searching. Rachel gasped softly; the sound caused her mouth to open and Quinn slipped her tongue inside, sighing when Rachel met her measure for measure. Rachel's hands reached up and fingers tangled gently in Quinn's hair, cupping her head and drawing her down, closer.

_Another night, another bar. It stank of stale beer and sweat, the crappy sound system thumped bass through the run-down place and rattling the floorboards._

_Santana was on the other side of the bar getting drinks with her fake i.d.; they were 18 and stupid, but no one on the outskirts of Lima would give the girls a second glance of recognition. Except the guy about six feet away, staring at Quinn until she shuffled her feet in nervousness._

"_Buy you a drink?" he slurred, coming to slump against the wall next to her._

"_No thanks, I'm good."_

"_Yeah you are, good-looking that is." Quinn rolled her eyes. "What's a girl like you doin' here all by yourself?"_

"_Hoping to stay that way?"_

_He laughed, too long and too hard, the beer mistaking Quinn's look of derision for one of lust._

"_I can change your mind."_

_He moved in for the kiss, Quinn's eyes flashed, and with a shove the girl who was 110 pounds soaking wet had shoved the 250-pounder back so that his head thumped against the wall. His buddies laughed; Quinn shook with rage, her jaw set, and when she spoke, her voice was not her own._

"_Get – off – me!"_

"Quinn?"

"Go home, Rachel," she said quickly, leaning against the lamp post and trying to calm her racing heart. "Go home, _now_."

"No," Rachel snapped. "What the hell, Quinn? What is going on?"

"Please. Go home, please. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Quinn." Rachel's hand found her arm; Quinn shook it off with a hiss and backed up.

"Get off me!"

"Quinn, _what is going on?_"

"I don't want him to hurt you!" Quinn yelled, a hand fisted against her head as she struggled to maintain control against the rage welling within her.

"Who?" Rachel said, brow furrowed in confusion. "Is there someone following us?" She glanced around. "I don't see anybody… is it an ex-boyfriend?"

"No, that's not… no."

"Then who is it?"

"It's _Puck_," Quinn forced out through gritted teeth. "No," she mumbled to herself, struggling. "No, don't, just don't, Rachel… go home, go home."

"Who is Puck?" Rachel took a step forward; Quinn backed away hastily, wishing for once that the girl's usual persistence would just _stop_. "Is he a brother or an ex or, what? Quinn, I want an explanation."

"He's me," Quinn blurted out miserably, her breath hitching in a sob.

Rachel stilled her advance, a look of complete and utter incomprehension on her face.

"I don't… I don't understand."

She didn't want to do this, not here, not now, but Quinn could feel herself folding inside herself, could see the familiar haziness beginning on the periphery of her vision. She needed to get home, she needed to be alone, she needed… she needed Santana. Santana understood.

But Rachel was looking at her with confusion and a little fear, but on the edges of _that_ was something that Quinn had only seen in her family, in her sister, in a judge who stared down at her when she was eight years old.

Concern. Care. The willingness, perhaps, to understand.

Jump, one part of Quinn said.

Stay, said the other.

She jumped.

"He's me," she mumbled. "I told you I was damaged, Rachel, but you just wouldn't believe it. Puck's a… personality. I have… more than one."

"You have… more than one… personality?" Rachel said slowly, her gaze never wavering from Quinn's.

"I have… a lot. Puck's just one. You already met Beth."

"Beth?" Quinn nodded.

"That day… that day during class when you had your panic attack. And you.. talked like a little kid?"

Quinn nodded again. "She's six."

"And Puck is…?"

"Older. Male, obviously. H-He comes out when I feel… threatened."

"I scared you?" Rachel's face went white.

"No… yes… I don't know." Quinn shook her head. "I'm just not… used to this. And just now, he… Rachel, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Oh." Rachel took a deep breath; she glanced around the busy New York night, then back at Quinn.

"I should go."

Quinn nodded, tears dotting her eyelashes. She reached out to grasp Rachel's hand; Rachel pulled away, but smiled brightly.

Too brightly.

Fake.

"I'll call you later on tonight, after I get home, okay?"

"You promise?" Quinn's voice was tiny, confused; she had the absurd thought that she actually really _did_ sound like Beth, at that moment.

Rachel reached up then with her hand, to touch Quinn's face; Quinn flinched and her hand hovered in mid-air before it dropped.

"Yeah. I promise."

Santana said nothing to Quinn when she came into the house, despite her sister's tear-stained face. Hours later though, she stopped in front of Quinn's open bedroom door and glanced in. Shaking her head she moved inside to drape the blankets over the sleeping form of her sister, tears still shining on her cheeks. Carefully she extracted Quinn's fingers from around the cell phone clutched tightly in her hand, and placed it on the bedside table before turning off the light and going to her own room.

Quinn slept through the night.

The phone never rang.


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? This story has proven more difficult to write than I imagined, and my muses took a vacation. I'm sorry. I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around, and I hope this chapter is worth the wait. I can't make any promises as to when the next chapter will be posted.

**Triggers/Warnings: Allusions to physical, mental, and sexual child abuse; bad language.**

"Beth, _please_."

The storms had been non-stop for three days. There was a brief respite of thirty minutes, just long enough for Quinn's eyes to come into focus and for Santana to shove her into the bathroom for a shower. But just as soon as the last bit of warm water had circled the drain, grey, hard water had come tumbling back from the skies, accompanied by a tympani of thunder. That had been a day and a half ago, and Quinn – _Beth_ – hadn't left the hall closet since.

Santana tried again. "Bethie… please? For San?"

Nothing.

She wasn't surprised. It had been this way for twelve years. No amount of coaxing or outright demanding would get through to Quinn when she was switched, to the point that when they were younger, Papa would just hoist Quinn in his arms, kicking and screaming, to be bathed or put in bed… everyone in the Lopez family had worn bruises from Beth at one point in time, and Santana was no exception.

But she was twenty and she had no desire to fight anymore. Her voice was tired, cracked… old.

She leaned her head against the wall next to the closet.

"I have to go to work," she said. She'd been out for the past three days, and Dr. Abrams had told her in no uncertain terms when she'd called in that morning that if she was out for one more day, that would be her last at the clinic.

"If I don't go to work, I'll be fired, and then I won't have money for your crayons and your coloring books and your cartoons. You don't want that, do you, Beth?"

Oh, she loved her sister, but she wasn't above some good old guilt… not that it ever worked. And it didn't work then; the only response was another loud clap of thunder and the sharp intake of breath from behind the closet door. Santana thumped her head against the wall in frustration.

Always it was the same. You could tell just by looking at Quinn, the minute rain started to stream down the windows of their tiny apartment. What was lithe and free would suddenly become coiled, stiff; eyes of bright hazel would darken to almost brown, wide and fearful. Santana would watch as a film reel of distorted, fuzzy memories would shift their way through Quinn; fingers would clench and unclench in a steady rhythm as slowly those hazel eyes would blink, would **blank**, and Quinn was gone. The twenty-year-old would be encircled by a six-year-old protector, and a gang of split emotions coexisting in her head to make up the whole, to guard the whole from her own reality. All this by the time the first roll of thunder capped the sky, and Santana barely had time to register before Quinn-as-Beth had darted to her safe haven.

They only had inklings about what had happened to Quinn during her time with her other… well, _those__people_, as Papa was found of calling them, punctuated with a spit on the ground. That first night, Santana had seen the bruises on Quinn's legs, some fresh, some fading into a mosaic of green, blue, and purple that spoke of weeks of the same treatment. She didn't understand it. Mama and Papa didn't spank, they didn't even yell. They didn't need to. One look from Papa was enough to send his children scurrying to do his bidding, and no one wanted to see disappointment in Mama's blue eyes. But it hadn't taken long for Santana to discover that Quinn's previous "family" had been very, very different, each time she bumped something or did something any normal six year old would do, and it resulted in her backing up against the wall with wide, fearful eyes, tiny hands held protectively over her bottom.

Only minor details had come out over the years. Things about a big house, porcelain dolls, Daddy's mechanic and Mommy's tv shows. It wasn't until Quinn was fourteen or fifteen that she was able to process her mother had "smelled funny" because of alcohol. It was easier for Quinn to talk about her mother, she'd explained to Santana. But every time a therapist pressed her to talk about her father they'd be met with the terrified personality of a six-year-old.

And then there were the nightmares.

"_No! Daddy, no!"_

_Santana sat bolt upright in bed just as the hall light switched on. _

"_Mama?"_

_Mama poked her head inside her daughter's room. "Go back to sleep, it'll be all right."_

_Papa lingered in Santana's doorway with a mournful smile to his youngest. Quinn hadn't yet warmed to him; in fact, she seemed deathly afraid of him, something that Santana knew bothered her gentle Papa. She didn't understand, Daddy was the best Papa ever. But no matter how much she tried to get Quinn to hug him, sit on his lap or play a game with him, Quinn never would. (The words "play a game" seemed to terrify her, actually, and Santana and her family quickly learned not to use them.)_

_Mama's soft voice floated through the house, singing quietly, with the little blonde girl's tears as accompaniment, and Santana sighed. Many moments later, the tears subsided and Mama appeared back in her doorway._

"_Santana?"_

_It was the same routine, always._

_Instantly her daughter was up out of bed, pillows under one arm, her favorite stuffed dragon under the other. She padded into Quinn's room and maneuvered herself into the girl's bed, under the covers. Lying on her back, her hand reached out until she found another, and squeezed gently._

"_Quinnie?"_

"_Monsters," the little girl muttered. "Just monsters."_

_Santana squeezed harder. "Not anymore. Not while I'm here."_

In time, Quinn had stopped being afraid of Papa, or the older boys in the house. She still mostly clung to Santana or Mama, but one of her favorite things eventually became being swung high up into the air and down onto Papa's shoulders, where he'd bounce around singing a song from his childhood and Quinn would laugh merrily.

The nightmares, though… they never stopped.

They hadn't once heard from Quinn's biological parents, up until the day Quinn was officially adopted, and that was just fine by Santana. She knew that Quinn's father had hurt her – mentally, physically, and... well… other ways – and if she ever saw the man she was pretty sure she'd kill him. Slowly and methodically. Still, a part of her perversely wished Quinn's parents could see what they'd done to their beautiful daughter, now reduced to hiding in closets when it rained.

She'd given up joking about Quinn choosing the _closet_ for her safe place. She'd given up joking about it at all. She was scared, because for the first time in her life Santana had glanced at the closet door a day and a half ago and contemplated leaving her sister there and just going… somewhere. Out into the city, into the peace and the rain and the crashing bright sky. Anywhere but there, with a sister out of control of herself.

If anything, lately Santana had realized she'd started to hate New York. Hate the clinic, hate her classes at the university, hate the tiny apartment that always seemed to stink of yesterday's leftovers, hated the constant battle of worry and happiness her sister's… what, condition? Illness? Disorder? Whatever the fuck it was. Santana didn't resent Quinn, she could never resent her sister for something that wasn't even her fault (and if Santana ever had the _pleasure_ of meeting Russell Fabray she'd see to it the asshole paid for what he did to her sweet blonde sister) but that didn't stop her from resenting the situation they both found themselves in.

She hadn't seen Brittany in as many days as the storm had decided to assault New York City. She hated that, too; it had gotten to the point where Santana needed to be near Brittany as much as possible. And Brittany… Brittany made it all easier. She made it _better_. She'd cruised into Santana's life on her long dancers legs and promptly took up residence, bringing relief in the form of a smile or a beer tipped back on a Friday night at Mike's. Santana wasn't ready for love, she didn't _want_ love, or so she'd told herself, but it was as if Brittany knew her resolve and simply laughed in the face of it. And now it had been three days, and Santana was feeling the strain. But at the same time she was grateful for it, because Brittany was attached to something that unnerved and fucking _annoyed_ Santana.

Rachel Berry.

_Her phone had rang at 3:30 a.m. and Santana rolled over in her bed, swearing under her breath until she saw the light on her iPhone and smiled at the picture id. "Hey baby," she said into the phone. "You okay?"_

_Outside she could hear the faintest sound of a calm rain flitting against the window, and she tried to keep her brow from creasing with worry. Just rain, she told herself. That's all. Just rain._

"_Mm," Brittany hummed sleepily. "Rachel just got home."_

"_Okay?"_

"_She just got home from the library. Her phone's dead or she would have called Quinn herself."_

_Santana was wide awake then; she tried to ignore the tightness in her palm as she held the phone closer to her ear._

"_Okay, and?"_

"_Said she was doing… research. Fell asleep in the library. She wants you to tell Quinn.. wouldn't let me go back to sleep until I promised to call."_

_Santana shook her head. "Go back to sleep, Britt."_

"_So you'll… mm… tired. You'll tell her? That Rachel was… hold on, can't remember." A pause, as if Brittany was thinking. Just as Santana was about to hang up, thinking her girlfriend had fallen asleep on the phone, she heard Brittany clear her throat._

"_Make sure you tell Quinn that Rachel was researching what they had discussed and that she fell asleep in the library. It is imperative that Quinn know that Rachel isn't afraid."_

Fuck_._

_Quinn had told her? And now the petite argyle freak was doing research into it? _

_Live my life for a couple of days, Santana thought bitterly. That's all the research you'll need._

"_San?"_

"_Yeah, Britt."_

"_You'll tell her?"_

"_Yeah. I'll tell her. Go back to sleep."_

"_Night San."_

"_Night baby."_

A knock sounded at the door just as it thundered again and Quinn let out a small shriek. "Jesus Christ," Santana muttered, listening to her joints pop as she pushed up off the floor and crossed the living room to turn the knob.

"Hi!" Brittany chirped happily, oblivious to the fact that she was drenched head to toe, because her raincoat was wrapped around something she held tightly in her arms.

"Brittany, damn, what… get in here, you'll catch a cold." Santana pulled the girl inside and left her dripping on the mat as she retrieved a towel from the bathroom. "You're supposed to _wear_ your raincoat, B."

"Oh, I know," Brittany said. "But then dinner would have gotten wet!" She dropped the raincoat on the floor and triumphantly held up a bag of takeout from Santana's favorite restaurant.

"Oh my god, you are such a dork," Santana laughed affectionately, dropping a kiss to Brittany's lips before taking the bag out of her hands and shoving the girl in the direction of the bathroom. "Go dry off. You've got a pair of sweats and a tank top in the bedroom."

"Yup yup. Hey... where's Quinn?" Brittany looked around, her brow furrowed. "She doesn't have class tonight, does she? 'cause Rach doesn't, and I know her and Quinn have them together. Rachel talks about her _all_ the time."

Bet she does, Santana thought. She talks about everything all the time.

"No, she doesn't have classes. She's ah… she doesn't feel very well."

"Oh, I hope she's not getting sick!" Brittany bounced into the living room again, toweling off her hair and flopping onto the couch. "I'm starving," she added, digging into the bag. "Come sit, Santana, you look tired."

"I am," her girlfriend – it was so strange to use that word now – admitted. "It's been a long few days."

"The weather's nasty," Brittany agreed around a mouthful of lo mein. "Business at the studio's dropped; I think the rain makes the grannies' arthritis flare up, and they can't dance."

Santana snorted. Brittany never hid the fact that she hated giving dancing lessons to octogenarians ("Rachel says she thinks there's no such thing as people who only eat octopus, San…"); her girlfriend knew that the blonde girl longed to be a choreographer. But so far, no gigs had panned out except for the one that was off-off-offx3 Broadway, and that show had folded after 45 minutes when the lead actor was booed off stage.

"He had really bad eyebrows," Brittany explained, as if that statement of fact summed it all up. As much as it discouraged her, though, Brittany pressed on, and seemed to find her greatest joy in teaching the littlest of her students, including one two-year-old who was just learning to tap. Santana had gone to the studio one afternoon to find Brittany dancing around with the little girl standing on her toes and holding onto Brittany's hands, laughing and squealing loudly. The smile on Brittany's face as she'd looked toward her girlfriend had been breathtaking.

"Hey San?"

"Yeah, B?"

"Do you have a ghost? Or a kid?"

Santana furrowed her brow and put down her forkful of noodles. "I don't have either, why?"

Brittany shrugged. "I'm not dumb, you know."

"I never said you were! But I don't understand your question."

"You have coloring books on the dresser in your room. And there are pictures hanging on the refrigerator. And all the Spongebob DVDs… can I borrow one? Anyway, I thought maybe you had a kid. Or maybe there's a little kid ghost that haunts your apartment because he can't find his way home through the Stargate because his gas mask doesn't fit right."

Santana blinked. "Uh, no, Britt," she said slowly, and then sighed.

What to do? Her mind was filled with the same images of boyfriends past, who took one look at her sister, or heard one word about her, and ran for the hills as fast as they could. It seemed that none of them were enough, either brave enough or strong enough to approach things like foster families, adoption, abuse, multiples… And if she was being honest about it, Santana hadn't minded all that much, when they were younger. It was Santana and Quinn against the world, badass superheroes "occasionally a little fucked in the head," was their motto. No matter what, even if there were never boys or girls to love them the way people were loved in the fairy tales Mama told them at night… they had each other and that, for 2 years, had been enough.

But then… Rachel. And as much as Santana hated it there was a light in Quinn she hadn't seen before. Or at least there had been, before the night that Rachel hadn't called. Santana stowed away the guilt gnawing at her stomach and brought her mind back to Brittany.

Brittany, Brittany with her simplicity of how the world worked, how things were black and white and the grey in between just meant the world hadn't made up its mind yet. How on earth would she understand any of this?

"Is there someone else?"

Santana snapped back to reality with a lurch. "W-what?" she croaked, panic rising within her.

"I mean, maybe they have a kid, and that's why you haven't been able to see me and-"

"They're Quinn's."

It was out, then, out before she could take it back, and Santana shook her head.

Brittany tilted her head, looking for all the world like a confused puppy.

Santana sighed again. "Do you remember how I told you Quinn was adopted? Well… her family before ours… they weren't good to her, Britt. They hurt her, a lot."

"Oh." Brittany's voice was tiny. "So, bad people."

"Yes. Really bad. And Quinn… she has a different way of dealing with it. Sometimes she gets really mean and mad, and sometimes she's… like a little girl."

"Oh!" Brittany nodded. "So the movies and the coloring books are hers, then? … but where is she, really?"

"She's… in the closet." Santana pointed towards the hall. "She gets really scared of thunderstorms and when there's one she won't come out of it. She's been in there three days, Brittany, and I can't leave her and I can't get her out, and I don't know what to do…"

Santana drew in a shaky breath and Brittany slipped her arm around her girlfriend and squeezed gently. Santana watched as Brittany got up and walked to the hall, slowly opening up the door and peering down at Quinn, who was huddled against the back wall, arms wrapped around herself.

"Hi, Quinn," Brittany said. There was, of course, no response.

"Do you want to come out and watch some television? We can watch Spongebob?"

Furious tears dotted her eyelashes as Santana watched Brittany talk quietly to her sister, trying every manner of coaxing and cajoling. Nothing worked, but she was _trying_. For so long it'd been just Santana and her family… seeing Brittany's attempts made the load on Santana's shoulders seem a little less… heavy.

After about five minutes, Brittany closed the closet door, leaving it cracked, and came to sit next to Santana on the couch.

"Do you think she'd mind if I used her crayons? I like coloring."

Santana's laugh was interrupted by the loud, insistent knock on the door. Santana got up to open it and groaned inwardly.

"Hello!" Rachel said brightly, oblivious to the fact that she was shaking her umbrella all over Santana's carpet. "We, ah, well we're out of power at the studio and I didn't want to go all the way back to campus, it's such a ride, you see, and I'd rather not attempt—"

"Do you possibly have a point?"

Rachel pursed her lips before continuing. "I have a paper due tomorrow, and I was merely wondering if I could borrow your internet for a while. Quinn has said you have wireless."

"No," Santana said, at the same time Brittany said, "Of course, Rach!"

Rachel beamed and went off to the kitchen, beginning to unpack her bag. Santana glared at Brittany who just grinned.

"Where is Quinn, by the way?" Rachel asked, sounding cautious. "I… haven't heard from her in a few days."

Brittany cast Santana a confused look and she shrugged, feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

"She's out," Santana said, once again at the same time Brittany announced, "Oh, she's in the hall closet, and she's scared."

Rachel came back to stand in the living room, her eyes on the hall closet door. She turned to Santana.

"She's in there?"

Against her better judgment, Santana nodded.

"Why is she scared?"

The slightly accusatory tone in her voice didn't escape Santana. "_I_ haven't done anything to her!" she snapped. "She just… she's afraid of storms, and she reverts back to Beth."

"Who's Beth?"

"That's... what Quinn likes to be called when she's scared like this."

"Oh," Brittany said, nodding thoughtfully. "So it's like pretending."

"Kind of."

"How long has she been in there?" Rachel asked.

"Three days," Brittany confirmed, and Santana rested her forehead on her hand.

"Three days! You've let her stay in there for three days?"

"I can't get her out!" Santana exclaimed. "You've known her for a month or two, Rachel; I've been dealing with this for twelve years, okay? God."

Rachel huffed (and Santana would swear that she saw the girl stomp her foot) then stalked off back to the kitchen, only to grab her laptop, notebook and papers, then come back and park herself on the floor next to the closet.

Santana quirked an eyebrow at Brittany, who just shrugged and continued working on the Care Bears picture. Santana pressed her fingers against her forehead once more and considered where her life was going.

She'd never imagined this, not when they were trying to convince their parents to let them move to New York. It'd resulted in a family meeting – the _whole_ family, and Quinn and Santana had sat on the couch in front of them like they were on trial. Santana had outlined their plan, slowly, carefully (She'd even written it down on paper. Quinn had color-coded it.): they would move to New York. Santana would get a part-time job. Quinn would try a part-time job. They both would go to college. After, Santana would be a nurse and Quinn would be a writer. They'd share an apartment, two sisters, always.

And above all, Santana would take care of Quinn.

Santana was losing count of how many times she'd failed, on all of it. She tried to flip through her textbook but all she could hear was the scritch-scritch of crayon against paper, and Rachel's soft humming as she chewed her lip and concentrated on her laptop while her finger idly pushed open the closet door inch by inch.

Santana froze.

Rachel peeked into the closet, her lips pressed into a tight, concerned line. The concern in her eyes was evident and Santana felt a small – very small – pang of guilt before the worry took over again.

"Rachel, don't-"

But Rachel ignored her as she simply rested her right hand on the floor of the closet and turned back to her homework. Minutes passed as her humming grew louder until she was softly singing, nearly under her breath but loud enough for Santana, Brittany, and most importantly, Quinn could hear her.

_Little child, be not afraid  
The rain pounds harsh against the glass  
like an unwanted stranger  
there is no danger  
I am here tonight_

Santana had never heard the song, and she snorted to herself at the lyrics, but Brittany glared at her and Santana sighed. When had she started becoming chastised by a tall blonde dancer? And when had she started listening to her? Ugh. If she allowed herself to think it, though – and she totally didn't – Rachel's voice was soothing. Kind of like the beginning of the rain, right before it gained momentum. Soft and slow, gentle and falling around the roof, making you want to curl into your bed and fall asleep.

Rachel's hand stayed on the floor as she sang, and Santana's eyes nearly bugged out of her head when a second hand slid across the carpet, pale fingers moving tentatively until they met darker ones, and Quinn clutched hard. Rachel smiled, never looking up from the computer on her lap.

_Little child__  
__be not afraid__  
__though thunder explodes__  
__and lightning flash_

_illuminates your tearstained face  
I am here tonight_

It slid across Santana like ice then, down her shoulders and to the middle of her chest, finally settling in her stomach like a weight, a dinner eaten too much, too soon, too fast; and all she could think of was, Why?

Why couldn't she do that? For three days she had tried, had struggled. Had begged, had pleaded, fussed, coaxed, cried… and Quinn wouldn't do a thing for her. But some little four foot midget waltzes into Quinn's life and suddenly it was like Santana didn't exist, hadn't existed…

She tried to tell herself she was being irrational; she pressed herself into Brittany's side and was rewarded with a kiss, while all around them was nothing but Rachel's voice, singing to Quinn.

_And someday you'll know__  
__that nature is so__  
__this same rain that draws you near me__  
__falls on rivers and land__  
__and forests and sand__  
__makes the beautiful world that you see__  
__in the morning_

And as if Rachel was some kind of damned weather-controlling goddess, fifteen minutes later the storm stopped. It took another ten minutes, but soon Quinn was in the living room, hair disheveled and eyes tired, looking incredibly embarrassed to have switched back with Rachel holding her hand and Brittany waving merrily at her from the couch, clutching a red crayon.

As always, Santana hugged her gently. "Welcome back, you."

"What are they doing here?"

"Brittany came over, and then Rachel. Something about needing our internet."

"I haven't heard from her…"

There was that twinge again, but Santana forced it down and nodded. "I know."

"How long this time?"

Santana kissed her cheek. "It doesn't matter. Go shower, sis, you stink."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "How long?"

"Three days."

"_Fuck_." Quinn's eyes filled up with tears, and Santana grabbed her in a hug.

"It's all right, Quinn. You know it's all right."

"No. No it isn't all right; I'm so fucking sick of this!"

Santana nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat. _Me__too_. "I know. Just… go shower. I'm going to fix you something to eat."

Quinn grinned ruefully. "Burger? What would I do without you?" she added in response to her sister's nod.

Santana smiled, trying not to think about why the question was like a knife in her heart. "I really don't know," she joked. "Probably never shower and never eat."

Quinn laughed and swatted her arm as she walked off towards the bathroom.

Santana's smile faded when she walked into the kitchen and saw Rachel sitting at the table, writing.

"You should probably go."

Rachel nodded absent-mindedly. "I'm finishing up anyway. I'll wait to talk to Quinn when she gets out of the shower, then go."

"I don't think you should talk to her. Not after what she's been through."

Rachel looked up. "Why?"

"Well, she's... fragile."

"She doesn't _look_ fragile."

"Well she _is_," Santana said hotly. "I think I know her better than you do."

Rachel shook her head and put her books in her bag. "Just let me say goodbye to her, Santana, then I'll stay out of your way for the evening."

"Fine," Santana said through gritted teeth. "But could you please wait in the living room? I have to fix Quinn dinner, and this kitchen is way too small _without_ your head filling it up."

Rachel's mouth dropped open in shock; Santana smirked as the smaller girl in the bright red skirt and red sweater stalked off to the living room and sat on the couch with her arms folded over her chest.

The triumphant feeling, however, faded only moments later when, coming out of the kitchen with Quinn's dinner, she spotted her adopted sister talking quietly with Rachel. Quinn glanced toward Santana, her face pinched white with anger. Santana winced.

"_You'll tell her?"_

"_Yeah. I'll tell her. Go back to sleep."_

"_Night San."_

"_Night baby."_

_Santana hung up her phone, staring at it until the light flickered out. She thought about her sister, lying in the bed with tear-stained cheeks, her own phone clutched in her hand until Santana had removed it and laid it on her bedside table. She stayed awake until light peeked over the horizon._

_When Quinn came into the kitchen to make breakfast that morning, Santana smiled at her over her coffee cup… and said nothing._

Fuck_._

She tried not to watch as Rachel reached up and gently touched Quinn's face, tried not to feel the ice settling in the pit of her stomach as Quinn lowered her lips to Rachel's and kissed her softly, their hands squeezing together in front of them. But ice was Quinn, cold, hard ice as Rachel and Brittany left and she rounded on her sister.

"W-why?" was all she asked.

"Why what?" Santana said, holding out the plate of food.

In a swift move Quinn had knocked it to the floor.

"She called," Quinn whispered. "She called… she's been _researching_, Santana. And you let me… you let me think she didn't care."

"She doesn't, don't you get it? You're a project or something for her, I don't know."

"You're right, you don't know!" Quinn began pacing the room, her hands balled into fists. "She called, she was researching… for once in my life I have someone who's not afraid of me, and you tried to ruin it!"

"I wasn't ruining anything, I was trying to save you," Santana protested, going for the broom to clean up the broken glass from the plate. "Quinnie, you don't—"

"No!" Quinn held up her finger and jabbed it into Santana's chest. "Don't you dare 'Quinnie' me. I'm… I'm trying to be happy, Santana, and you… you kept it from me. I'm not this fragile piece of china that you seem to want to make Rachel believe I am."

"It's better than her knowing you're a freak!"

The air in the room became stifling. Quinn stopped mid-stride, staring.

"Oh… oh god," Santana muttered. "Quinn, I don't mean that, that's not what I meant, I-"

"Just shut up," Quinn snapped. "At least now I know what you really think of me."

"You're my sister; I don't think you're a freak! I love you, dumbass."

She hoped it would make Quinn laugh; it always had in the past. But not this time. Quinn was on the couch, arms wrapped around herself, her hazel eyes cloudy… but perfectly in control.

"I'm just tired, Quinn," Santana said helplessly, sweeping up the broken glass. "I don't know how to deal with this. Not this time. And you just… you don't _need_ her. She'll only hurt you."

"You have no idea what I need."

"The fuck I don't. My entire _life_ is you."

Quinn looked up at Santana, an expression on her face as if she was seeing her sister for the first time.

"Well," she said softly, getting up and crossing the floor to her room.

"I'm sorry I've ruined your life."

Santana watched as her sister closed the door, the telltale click of the lock sounding like a gunshot. She stared down at the broom and dustpan in her hands and back at the closed door. Angrily she tossed them down on to the floor.

Grabbing her jacket, she headed out of their apartment into the night, not caring where her feet were taking her.


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you to everyone for your encouragement and continued patience in the reviews. I hope this chapter was worth the interminably long wait. Please read the following information CAREFULLY before you proceed with this fic.**

**TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: Nothing is explicitly played out in this fic, but the following triggers are present - child physical and sexual abuse; rape; physical violence. Please take care in reading this; I wouldn't want anything I write to hurt anyone. **

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"Baby?"

"Mm?" Quinn hummed, cuddling Rachel closer to her as they lay together on the bed in Quinn's room. This was a new development in the relationship; one that Quinn was slowly getting used to. It had been two months since Quinn had found out Rachel had been researching, and that Santana had kept that a secret. Two blissfully content months of holding hands, kissing, tentatively and nervously making out on the couch, and now holding each other close on the bed. And even though Santana had barely spoken to her since that day, Quinn's hurt was somewhat eased by the way Rachel always snuggled into her, her face pressed against Quinn's neck.

"Can you tell me something?"

"Tell you something?"

"About it."

Quinn tensed. "It?" she said, her mouth suddenly dry.

Rachel, feeling the change in her girlfriend - Quinn loved that word - sat up slightly and ran her hand through Quinn's hair. "About you. About it. We don't really talk about it."

It. When Quinn had first been diagnosed, it had been hard for her to talk about It. She felt as if It should always be capitalized, something important but not important enough to give a name. Important, but she wanted to keep It at a distance, not accept that she actually had something that set her so apart from everyone else. Because if she was being honest, her disorder made _her_ feel like an It. Something unreal, inhuman, not whole. But Dr. Jones had helped Quinn see that by naming It she took away some of its power. Dissociative identity disorder. But that didn't mean she was eager to talk about it all the time, and even in therapy she had to be drawn out. She knew there were certain things that Dr. Jones wouldn't talk about, or try to get her to revisit, and for that Quinn was grateful. She'd apparently blocked out a lot and she wanted to keep it that way, and everyone in her life had learned not to ask. Most people wouldn't be able to deal with the answers anyway, she knew.

"We don't really talk about it because it's depressing," Quinn said with a chuckle.

It was true; she and Rachel talked about everything but that. Books, musicals, television, Santana, Brittany. School. The weather. Rachel had told Quinn everything about her life in Cincinnati, about her dads and how hard it was to grow up the child of gay men. It made Quinn want to build a time machine so she could go back and kick the asses of everyone that hurt her girl. Some of the names they'd called Rachel, the things she'd been put through… It was a lot like what Quinn had experienced, and it was easy to talk about that part of her life. But like Quinn, Rachel wasn't too keen to revisit her high school life every time they talked. So they'd usually talk about the most mundane things, but always in the back of her mind – and she knew it was in the back of Rachel's – was the fact that Quinn was different. Quinn knew that Rachel wanted to know the harder things; Rachel was always hungry for knowledge about anything, but especially as it related to the people she cared about. She'd asked a few questions, but Quinn had always been good at deflecting. She'd perfected it over the years, and though it made her feel guilty to use it against her girlfriend, she only hoped Rachel could understand that it wasn't her. Quinn was like that with everyone. Still, she wanted Rachel to be different. She _was_ different, and had proved that in everything so far.

Rachel smiled and leaned up to kiss Quinn's lips. "I don't mind being depressed," she pointed out. "Not when it's about my girl." She shrugged. "Talk about it. Or you. Or your family… the Fabrays."

Quinn pulled back from Rachel and turned away. "I don't want to talk about _them_. They're not my _family_."

"_I want to see her."_

"_Well, I'm sorry, Mrs. Fabray, but you can't. And if you insist on coming by here every week I'm going to file a restraining order. Please leave."_

"_I didn't want to give her up," Judy Fabray said, her voice distressed. From her position watching through a crack in the hall closet, Quinn raised her thumb to her mouth, then slapped it away with her other hand. She was thirteen, damn it, not a baby. As much as she told herself that though, she also told herself that only a baby would dive for the nearest closet as soon as they heard a particular someone's voice. She hadn't heard that voice since that day 3 years ago._

"_I didn't want her to leave us, but he… he said…"_

"_Yes, he said," Papi repeated, his voice angry, even as Mami reached her hand out and squeezed his upper arm. "You did everything he said. You did everything you were supposed to do as his wife, and nothing you were obligated to do as Quinn's mother."_

"_You don't understand what it was like!" Quinn heard Mrs. Fabray plead, and for a moment, she felt sorry for the woman who used to be her mother. No one had known what it was like, for any of them. The two things that Quinn remembered clearly from her time with her biological parents were her father's anger, and her mother's tears._

"_No," now Papi's voice was soft. "I don't understand what it was like. I don't understand what it was like to be married to him, to have that life with him, for him to beat my child." Quinn winced. "To not know that he was ra-"_

"_What's she doing here?"_

_Quinn smiled a little, hearing the venom in her sister's voice._

"_She was just leaving," Mami said, and _her_ tone brooked no disagreement. "And she won't be coming back. If she really loves Quinn, if she really wants to protect her… you won't come back, Mrs. Fabray."Quinn watched as Mami reached out and rested her hand on Mrs. Fabray's shoulder, a sympathetic but firm look on her face._

"_Quinn is ours now. She's _our_ daughter. We love her, and she's happy and well-taken care of. Please, for her sake."_

_There was silence, then a brokenness as Mrs. Fabray spoke again. "I-I won't come back. I do love her, I did love her, she's my baby… Will you give her this? Please? So she'll know I love her."_

_Quinn opened the door a little wider, and her eyes fell upon the doll in Mrs. Fabray's hands. From her position on the floor of the hall closet… Beth screamed._

"All right, baby, all right," Rachel soothed, kissing Quinn again, fingers running once more through her hair. "You don't have to talk about them, I'm sorry." Her brown eyes were full of concern as she regarded Quinn. "We'll talk about happy stuff, angel, whatever you want."

She was so sweet, Quinn thought, as Rachel fell silent and simply held her. She'd been to Rachel's apartment over the dance studio a few times, and each time she'd seen a different book on what Quinn had and experienced. Luckily for Quinn Rachel hadn't gotten anymore firsthand knowledge: the weather had been unseasonably pleasant lately, and any time Quinn felt nervous about their intimacy Rachel was quick to slow down or put a stop to what they were doing altogether. Quinn was beginning to settle into the reality of a stable relationship, and their days were filled with classes, going to the nightclub for Rachel to sing, or just cuddled up on the couch watching Rachel's musicals or Quinn's cartoons.

Quinn slipped back down on the bed, resting her head on Rachel's shoulder. "Is Brittany still mad?"

She knew from a brief talk with Santana that Brittany hadn't reacted well to Santana keeping the truth from Rachel. Quinn didn't want to get involved but she knew part of the reason why her sister could barely speak to her was because she was hurt, and annoyed with herself that she'd upset someone that was slowly coming to mean a lot to her. Quinn had told Santana to talk to Brittany, to explain herself; even though remembering Santana calling her a freak hurt more than anything Quinn had ever felt before, Santana was still her sister. She'd fix it all if she could.

_She was curled up in bed, facing the wall with Colley pressed close to her chest, when she heard the knock on the door. "Come in," she mumbled, not bothering to swipe away the tears that were still on her cheeks._

_Seconds later, the bed dipped as Santana sat next to her. "Q, I'm sorry."_

_Quinn shrugged and rolled over to look at Santana. "It's true. You didn't sign up for this."_

"_Did you?" Quinn shook her head, and Santana reached over to brush the tears away with her thumb. "Neither one of us signed up for anything that's been handed to us, Q. And it sucks, you know? It fucking sucks." Santana sighed, a faraway expression on her face. "It sucks that people make fun of you. It sucks that I have to constantly watch you to make sure you don't switch or beat up somebody. It sucks that your dad was an ass and your mom was too scared to help you. It sucks that your brain can only deal with it by splitting you up into pieces, it-"_

"_I get it, Santana, all right? I'm fucked up. We know."_

"_Probably could have stopped halfway through that, yeah, sorry." Quinn offered Santana a half-hearted smile, and Santana leaned down and kissed her forehead. "But do you know what would really suck?"_

"_Santana…"_

"_Not having you," Santana said firmly. "Yeah it makes family photo day a little weird, you're like a vampire in a field of… okay that analogy doesn't work." She grinned when Quinn giggled. "Blonde hair, hazel eyes, and then there's… us. Brown hair, brown eyes… totally in love with this kid who showed up when she was 7 years old." Santana smiled sadly at Quinn. "My sister. And no I didn't sign up for it, but if someone asked me to, right here, right now? I would."_

_Quinn sniffled and moved so that her head was resting in Santana's lap. Santana sighed and patted her sister's back. "I don't like punching people when they call you names. Well, I take that back, I love punching people. And I'll do it, every time. I told you I'd take care of you."_

_She looked down at Quinn and smiled, a genuine one this time. "I promised."_

Rachel shook her head, brushing her lips against Quinn's. "I don't think so; she's been over to the studio nearly every day last week. Plus I'm pretty sure I heard bed springs-"

"Okay that's good, babe," Quinn interrupted, making a face. "I don't need to hear anymore." She squeezed Rachel close when her girlfriend laughed, then Quinn said seriously, "I don't remember anything."

Rachel deserved to know something, at least.

Rachel tilted her head in confusion. "What don't you remember?"

"Anything," Quinn said again. "When I switch. I mean, sometimes I do, but… I don't know." She shrugged. "I guess it's my brain protecting me, keeping me from remembering everything I do when I'm… someone else, but sometimes I'd just like to know. I wish I could stop it. I mean, I've hurt people, Rach."

She didn't want to think about it. Some people she knew she'd been at least a little justified in hurting, like Karofsky. But she knew she'd said things that had hurt Mami and Papi, Santana. She wished it was easier, she wished she didn't have to lose parts of herself all the time, she wished… she wished she was just normal.

Rachel hugged Quinn tight. "Don't, baby," she whispered, kissing Quinn gently. "I don't think you've hurt anyone as badly as you think you have."

Quinn's brow furrowed in disapproval; Rachel really had no idea, but it probably wasn't her fault. It wasn't like Quinn talked about everything, after all. But Quinn was distracted by Rachel's lips on hers; she returned the kisses eagerly, feeling an urgency building in the pit of her stomach.

Rachel was gorgeous. They hadn't done anything more than making out and some light petting over clothes, but everything about Rachel Berry was amazing. Quinn knew she was falling for the petite brunette with the huge voice, and the feeling exhilarated and terrified her. She'd never felt this way for anyone before; there'd been a few other girls but they'd all run away when Quinn dared to tell them even a little bit of her history. Rachel was different, Rachel with her research and determination, her songs and her hand gentle and soft in Quinn's as she raised her voice through a storm. Rachel was breath and memory, sound mind and understanding. She was, Quinn thought as their kisses became more heated, everything she wasn't.

"S-sweetheart," Rachel murmured against Quinn's lips. "Maybe we ought to slow d-"

"Uh uh," Quinn whispered, not letting up with her kisses. "I don't want to, Rach."

"But Quinn, I don't want you to feel like you have to…"

"I want you." She pulled back and looked deep into Rachel's brown eyes. "I want you, I want this, I want us." She kissed Rachel again, searching until her tongue found the other girl's, but she sighed in frustration when Rachel pulled away.

"You're sure?"

"Baby if you don't make love to me tonight, I'll probably explode."

Rachel laughed. "Well, can't have that, can we?" she said, her eyes sparkling.

Quinn nuzzled her face into Rachel's neck, kissing the pulse she found there, while her fingers searched for the buttons on her shirt. She pulled back, meeting the other woman's gaze with hers. "Rachel," she whispered. "Rachel…"

Her breath was coming deeper now; her eyes were almost black as she stared up at Quinn, biting her lower lip. Quinn pulled Rachel's shirt apart, and her own breath stilled in her throat at the sight of the lacy bra, the smooth tanned skin, the way Rachel's chest rose and fell in time with the beat of Quinn's heart. For a split second Quinn was reminded of a song that Rachel had sung the other night at the club, something that seemed to sum up everything she was feeling at that exact moment.

_For you have suffered enough, and warred with yourself, it's time that you won…_

It was time that she won. She stripped Rachel's shirt off, leaning down to kiss the swell of her breasts, hearing Rachel's small sighs in her ears as she tangled her fingers in Quinn's hair. It was time that she won. Everything she'd been through as a child, her father, her mother, adjusting to a new home, the alters, Beth… It would all be worth it for this, this moment. With Rachel.

"Is it… is it okay?" Quinn asked, her fingers at the front clasp of Rachel's bra. Rachel nodded, and with an expertise she didn't know she had, soon Rachel was laying exposed in front of her. Quinn stared in awe. She was… completely beautiful.

"Beautiful," she whispered, her mouth descending, and Rachel arched with a gasp, her fingers now a little rough in blonde locks. Quinn felt a familiar shiver at the base of her spine; she ignored it.

This was it. This was her chance. She'd waited so long. Years for it all to come together, days and weeks and months of just wanting… one chance. To have what she wanted. And with Rachel, she'd have it.

_Finally_.

"Quinn…" Rachel's voice was low, and Quinn felt herself shiver again. Rachel smiled at her, an inviting, slightly predatory smile… just as she flipped Quinn over so she was on top.

Quinn's eyes widened.

_He'd seemed quiet. He hadn't said much, just "thank you, ma'am," and "no, sir," a voice polite and sweet. But his eyes… she couldn't shake that there was something in his eyes. Something that reminded her…_

"Rachel…"

Rachel kissed her, deeply, slowly; Quinn's hands rose to rest at the base of Rachel's spine, just above the fabric of her shorts. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband, and drew them down slowly. Rachel lifted herself to kick them off, and she was completely naked on top of Quinn.

_The door to Quinn's room was never quiet. Papi kept saying he'd fix it, that he'd get rid of "that blasted creak," but to be honest, Quinn enjoyed it. It was comforting, almost. It meant that at 10 p.m. Mami and Papi would come to say good night, that at 7 a.m. Santana would come to say good morning. It was like a clock, sounding the end and beginning to every day in Quinn Lopez's life._

_It wasn't supposed to creak at 1 a.m._

"You're beautiful," Rachel whispered, and Quinn closed her eyes, dizzy with it. She was beautiful. Someone thought she was beautiful, she was normal, she wasn't a freak. Rachel's hands were on her own shirt, button by button, slowly, methodically, little kisses on her lips as each one was freed.

_He was taller than she'd ever known anyone to be. He stood at the foot of the bed, and she could see his eyes glinting in the moonlight. Blue. Cold. She saw a flash of white as he smiled. And suddenly…_

"Rachel…"

"So beautiful." Rachel's mouth was on her neck; Quinn squeezed her eyes tight.

Everything would be fine, she thought, as Rachel's hands moved to the waistband of Quinn's jeans; she ran her fingers down Rachel's back and the girl shuddered at her touch. Rachel was whispering things into her ear, things about feeling good, things about love, special…

Rachel's hand had slipped into her jeans; Quinn's eyes flew open.

"Rachel!"

The air was stifling; she was dizzy. Her hands fell away from Rachel and grasped at the sheets underneath her; she clenched her teeth against the growl coming from deep within her chest. Rachel chuckled at the sound.

"Like that, baby?"

"_Stupid freak." She heard the zipper of his jeans slide up; she curled onto her side and drew her knees to her chest. Her eyes flashed like lightning; her cheeks were wet with tears._

Her body went rigid. Rachel stilled, and drew back to look at her.

"Quinn? Baby, it's all right, okay?" She leaned down to kiss her. "Don't be nervous, I'm right here. We're going to share this together, my love. You're so beautiful…"

"_Quinnie? Look what Daddy has for you, baby girl."_

_A doll. Or a book. A Barbie house that towered over her, with an elevator that worked. A bicycle – without training wheels, because she was a big girl and didn't need those, Daddy was just _so proud_ of her._

_She didn't want it. She didn't want any of them. She didn't want pink pajamas and a room with Jesus on the wall and a door that opened late at night. She didn't want the shadow standing over her bed, watching her; she didn't want Mommy's sad eyes in the morning as she woke her up and kissed her. "Time to get up for school, Quinnie."_

_Daddy loves you so much, Quinnie._

_You're daddy's special girl._

_Special girls don't get their daddies in trouble, remember?_

_Remember…_

_She was a good little girl. A good little girl with perfect hair, perfect clothes, remember your manners, Quinn. Why can't you be a good girl, why do you make Daddy so angry all the time? Daddy doesn't want to punish you but you need to learn, young lady, you need to learn how not to be such a bad girl. Don't say anything to anyone, Quinn, or your daddy will have to go away and you don't want that do you? You don't want to make mommy sad and daddy have to go away and not see his two favorite girls again do you?_

_No daddy I love you, I'll be a good girl, I promise._

_That's my special girl, come on, do you want to go to the store? Daddy will buy you and mommy a present, you'll like that won't you?_

"Get off."

"Quinn?"

"Get… off!"

"_Asshole! How could you? Fucking prick, you're going to pay for this!" She could hear bone crunching, someone yelling for her to stop, Santana's voice, angry and cold. Quinn curled further into herself._

_She felt dizzy, but peaceful. Her fingers flexed in and out as if full of an energy that she couldn't explain. She felt like she was smiling, but why would she smile? Santana sounded far away; Papi daling 911 may as well have been in another country, Mami wasn't in the room trying to get her to "say something, Quinn, it's all right, _mija_, come back to us, what _happened?" _The house was alive with lights switching on and brothers and sisters running around; Mami pleading and _him_ blubbering like Miguel if you took away his favorite toy._

_But Quinn didn't hear anything. Except…_

_Just before the world went dark, she heard a voice. A voice that was hers, but not. A male voice, arrogant and angry._

_No one's going to hurt you like that again._

"Quinn? Quinn, sweetheart, i-it's me, it's Rachel, it's okay, baby, you're okay…"

"Get off of her!"

The world went dark.

She didn't hear Rachel cry out.


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N: We're almost at the home stretch, patient readers. Just a couple more chapters to go. Thanks for reading and being so wonderful while I take nearly 3 years to finish a fic!**

**TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: Child physical and sexual abuse, violence, attempted suicide. Please use discretion while reading.**

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Brittany held open the door for Santana and offered her a sad smile, in addition to the kiss as she ushered her inside.

"How is she?"

Brittany shrugged. "You know, not good. What about you, how are you?"

She led Santana over to the couch and sat down, unceremoniously grabbing her girlfriend and pulling her down onto her lap. Santana's eyes widened in surprise before she relented and rested her head on Brittany's shoulder. She smelled like rain, which was interesting because it had been sunny the last three days and there was no chance of thunderstorms.

"It's bad," Santana admitted. "I've been thinking about calling my parents."

"Maybe you should."

"Yeah but that means them finding out I couldn't do it on my own."

Brittany raised an eyebrow as she looked at Santana. "I could be wrong, San, but I thought the whole purpose of having parents was so we didn't have to do things on our own. Not everything, anyway."

Santana smiled a little and wrapped her arms around Brittany's waist. She wasn't used to this. Well, cuddling was nothing new – Brittany was one hell of a cuddle monster. But curling up on Brittany's lap and clinging to her? Definitely not something Santana was used to. But after the last three hours… yeah, she'd take all the cuddling she could get.

She thought about what it would mean, if she called Mami and Papi. She knew the entire Lopez clan – and that meant mom, dad, siblings, and _grandparents_ – would swoop into New York City like a crowd of hyper-concerned vultures. Maybe it was what both she and Quinn needed, a chance to just chill out with the family and rest. But Santana knew that it would also mean more than chilling out. It'd mean… what? Leaving New York for Lima? Quitting her job? Worse, Quinn going back to Lima without her?

Santana knew that was Quinn's worst fear. Not being without her, but being back in Lima, cared for by their parents. It'd be like she was 16 again, not allowed out of the house unless she was with one of the others because things had gotten just too volatile for her to be out on her own. Endless doctors and psychiatric appointments, hospitalization? Things had never gotten that bad, but after today? It didn't seem as if things could get any worse.

"I might have to leave if I call them."

Brittany's arms tightened around her. "You're an adult, San," she said quietly. "I mean sure, you watch cartoons with me and you play with Beth whenever she shows up but you're an adult. They can't make you leave."

"I can't leave Quinn."

"Maybe… you need to."

Santana jerked out of Brittany's arms but didn't stand up. "What the hell does that mean?"

Brittany stared at her with wide, sad eyes and sighed. "How many years have you taken care of Quinn? Since she was seven? When are you going to take care of yourself?" She shrugged and looked away from Santana, her voice quiet when she spoke again.

"When are you going to let me take care of you? I mean I think I'm starting to love you, San."

The tears rushed to Santana's eyes as she sank back against Brittany and let out a shuddering breath. She'd told Brittany everything. Well, almost everything, there were things she didn't understand all that well, or things she knew Quinn would kill her if she found out Santana had told. But Brittany knew enough, and she was incredibly perceptive about the toll everything was taking on her girl.

"I think... I'm starting to love you too," Santana whispered. "But Britt, this is my sister."

"She's always going to be your sister," Brittany pointed out. She fixed her gaze on Santana. "But I might not always be your girlfriend."

Santana stared at Brittany for a long time, before she finally nodded. She didn't say anything, except "I'm going to go see Berry." Brittany didn't answer, just gave Santana a hug before letting her up off her lap.

"I don't need anything, Brittany, I'm all right," Rachel called when Santana knocked on the door. She turned when the door opened, and Santana froze.

Rachel's lower lip was swollen and split, though not enough for her to need stitches. Thank goodness for small blessings? Santana wondered. Still, the angry red line defining her mouth had Santana swallowing past the bitterness that rose, and she closed her eyes momentarily.

"I'm sorry."

Rachel turned and faced her desk again. "No, Santana, you're not, so please don't embarrass yourself by pretending when we both know the truth."

Santana's mouth dropped open and she had to restrain herself from walking out and slamming the door behind her. Instead, she took a deep breath. "Berry…" She walked over to the girl's chair and stood at her side, looking down at her.

"I'm _sorry_."

Rachel's eyes were red; she'd clearly been crying and it clearly wasn't going to stop anytime soon because tears were still trickling down her cheeks, though maybe not as fast as they had been, Santana guessed. She knew showing up wasn't exactly making things any better. Rachel shook her head.

"What else did she do?"

"You know as well as I do Quinn didn't do it."

"I think I know better than you do."

"Of course, I forgot, no one knows her better than you. All hail Santana."

Santana took a step back, surprised once again by the venom in the girl's voice. She clenched and released her fists, and moved until the back of her legs hit Rachel's bed and she sat down. Or, well, she sat down on a playbill; she pulled it out from under her and glanced at it. Wicked.

"Good show," she said, tossing the playbill back onto the bed; Rachel narrowed her eyes and Santana cleared her throat, making a note to be more careful about those in the future.

If there was one.

"What else did she do to you, Rachel?"

The name sounded foreign on her lips, and judging by the expression on Rachel's face it had surprised her too. Santana could barely stand to look at her; though there was no blood, it was making her sick to think that Quinn was the one who had done it, it was because of her sister that Rachel was sitting there looking like a girl lost and alone in a huge city.

"Nothing," Rachel said quietly. She glanced away from Santana. "She just hit me."

_She just hit me_. Santana winced, but clarified, "Puck hit you."

"Fine, Puck hit me."

Santana groaned inwardly and rubbed her forehead with her hand. Why couldn't this just be simple? She thought to herself. God, she was so old.

"Rachel… this isn't going to get easier."

_Her phone rang as she was out getting groceries; Santana brightened at the Ke$ha ringtone signaling a call from her girlfriend. Her smile disappeared though when she answered and heard the worried voice on the other end._

_She knew she looked like a crazy person, but she didn't care as she left the full cart behind in the store, and ran the three blocks to her apartment._

_She threw open the door and stopped in her tracks. Quinn was stood in the middle of the floor, staring at her hand. Her hair was disheveled, her shirt and her pants unbuttoned. The knuckles of her right hand were stained red._

"_Q?" Santana said uncertainly. She didn't know if it was really her sister standing there._

_She looked up, and Santana was relieved to see that even though there were tears in those hazel eyes, they were clear._

"_D-did I hurt her?"_

_She didn't remember. That was just wonderful, Santana thought. Sometimes, Quinn was "lucky enough" to remember enough details for her to put together the things that had happened, or that she'd done, while she was switched. It appeared that this time, she had no clue._

"_What's the last thing you remember?" Santana moved over to Quinn and buttoned her pants, followed by her shirt. She took Quinn's left hand and led her to the bathroom, picking up her right hand and beginning to wash the blood from her skin. She'd have a pretty good bruise, but no bones were broken, fortunately._

_At least there was one bright spot in this whole mess._

"_We were trying to…" Quinn flushed, and Santana nodded; she'd figured that much. She didn't say anything, like how it was too fast too soon. Pretty sure Quinn knew that. "And she was being so sweet, San, so perfect, and she said I was beautiful."_

"_You are beautiful."_

"_Santana… what did I do?"_

_Santana took Quinn into her room, intent on putting her to bed. "That can wait until the later, baby sis. Right now you should take a nap."_

"_No," Quinn said, pulling out of Santana's grasp. She turned to her sister. "Tell me. What did I do?"_

"_You didn't do anything."_

"_Yes, I did, Santana, whether I was switched or not it was still me! What did I do?"_

"_You punched her!" Quinn gasped, and Santana pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a puff of air from her lips. She met Quinn's gaze. "You punched her, Q. You saw your hand. Sometime during you two doing whatever it was you were doing – which I don't want to know, by the way – you switched to Puck, and you punched her. She left and ran to the studio; Brittany called me and here I am." Like a fucking St. Bernard rescue dog, she thought bitterly, then immediately felt guilty._

"_I-is she hurt?"_

"_You busted her lip, Quinn."_

"_And she left?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Because I scared her."_

"_Yeah."_

_She wasn't sure what reaction she expected. Tears, maybe. A scream. Anger, with Quinn wanting to punch a wall or kick over a chair. Or maybe Quinn would sink to her knees in shock, asking Santana to leave her alone. Which Santana would never do. She'd seen a lot of Quinn's reactions to things over the years, except… this one._

_Because there was nothing. No tears, no screams. No anger, no running to the closet with a high pitched cry and slamming the door, locking herself away from the world and into her mind. There was just… silence. Her eyes stayed focused as they looked at Santana, but all she could hear was the slow ticking of the clock on the wall. Then, finally…_

"_Okay."_

"Is she all right?"

"Considering? Yeah, I guess," Santana said. Quinn hadn't said much else to her, but she'd actually seemed fairly okay. Santana had insisted she get into bed, which she'd done, and for her to eat something, which she had. They didn't talk about it; Santana figured Quinn would open up to her when she was ready. But she hadn't, not yet, and Santana felt that it was as if Quinn had finally decided… that it was over. What Santana had predicted had come true.

Quinn was accepting that it would never work with Rachel.

But instead of making her feel triumphant or vindicated, it just left Santana feeling old and sad. It didn't help that Rachel was looking at her with her lower lip jutted out. It made her wish things were different. Quinn had been different, with Rachel. There'd been a light in her eyes Santana hadn't ever seen before, and she'd laughed more, seemed happier. But when she'd left the apartment just a half an hour earlier – and Quinn knew she was going to Rachel's – Quinn had only just waved, not even looking up from the tv at her.

"It's not going to get easier, Rachel," Santana said again.

"I know."

She shook her head. "No, you don't. This?" She stood and picked up a few of the books on dissociative identity disorder from Rachel's desk. "This doesn't tell you what it's like. Not to live, breathe, eat, sleep, _feel_ it."

"Santana, I know-"

"No, you don't!" She threw the books back onto the desk and began to stalk around the room, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans. She turned back to Rachel. "You don't know what he did to her, Rachel."

"What did he do to her? She won't tell me."

"He'd beat her. For any little thing. She was just a _kid_, she'd spill stuff – you saw her when she spilled that drink at the bar. But if she had the wrong dress on, if she said the wrong thing, if she had one fucking curl out of place on that perfect head of hers… She was _seven years old_ and she showed up with bruises, Rachel."

Both of them had tears flowing fast and hard then, and Santana took a deep breath before she continued. "But he did more… god, Rachel, fill in the blanks, you're smart even if your fashion sense is dumb as hell." Rachel didn't even huff or stomp her foot at the insult; instead, Santana was surprised when the petite brunette reached out and seized her hand. She was even more surprised when she squeezed it.

"She never got a break, you know?" Santana said, using her other hand to wipe the tears off her face. "First her dad, and then there was this guy… foster kid… broke his fucking nose."

"Good for you," Rachel said, and Santana could hear that she meant it. She grinned a little.

"She's never got a break, Rachel, and she's never going to _get_ a break. This isn't going away."

"I didn't think it would, Santana, I'm not delusional."

Santana quirked an eyebrow, taking in the bright pink pajamas the girl was wearing, and how her hair was pulled into pigtailed braids, but she decided to say nothing. Instead, she took another deep breath, let go of Rachel's hand, and stared resolutely at her.

"She could do it again, Rachel. She could do it again."

"M-maybe not," Rachel stuttered, taking a step back. "We could work on it, both of us, together. I-it might take a while, but I can do it. We can do it."

"That's a nice sentiment," Santana said gently. "But Rachel… this isn't going away."

"You just don't want me with her," Rachel accused. "You're content to have Quinn all to yourself, even though you think she's a freak!"

Santana winced; so Quinn had told Rachel that. Wonderful.

"You think I don't want Quinn to be happy?" she asked, and was irritated when her voice cracked with the strain of the question. "This little girl shows up on the doorstep of my house when I was 7 years old, and she looked so alone, Rachel, I swore to myself that I'd do anything to make her happy."

"Then let me—"

"You don't get it, Berry! Okay? You just _don't_ get it. I called her a freak, and believe me I'd take every single personality she has if I could, because she doesn't deserve it. Nobody does. But I can't, and you can't, because it's not going away."

"I _know it isn't_! I know I'm not going to heal her, Santana."

"Do you?" she tilted her head. "Can you tell me that deep down you haven't thought that you'd be different, you'd be the one that she wouldn't be scared of, you'd be the one to protect her from the demons inside and out of her head, that you'd be the one to fix her?"

Rachel was silent, and Santana could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. All the research Rachel had read, Santana had read the same. She'd heard the stories from people who thought they could change things, make it go away, cure it. But there wasn't any cure, no absolution, for something that the majority of the world still believed didn't even exist. Santana watched as the realization began to dawn on Rachel's face.

"I don't want to be her savior, Santana…"

Santana nodded. "She's always going to be like this, Rachel. She's got five personalities that we know of already, but you've read the books, you know there could be as many as 10, 15. What are they all going to be like? Cute and sweet like Beth, or an asshole like Puck? How are you going to react when you meet a new one? Or when an old one won't listen to you or even _recognize _you?"

"I-I don't know, we'll just deal with it as it happens…"

"Like you dealt with it today?" She knew the words stung, and all the color drained out of Rachel's face. Santana sat wearily back down on the bed and folded her arms across her chest. "This could happen again, Rachel. She could go into the closet and not come out for days. Or she could hit you again. Or one of the other personalities could do something she's never done before. And you can't… you can't _run from it_, Rachel. Okay? The monsters aren't under the bed, they're not hiding in the closet and they're not going to turn out to be good-hearted after all. And _she's_ not a monster, I don't even know where I'm going with this. I'm just saying, this isn't a fairytale, Rachel. You can't kiss her and she'll wake up."

She glanced up and saw that Rachel wasn't even looking at her, but was staring out the window as rain began to stream on the glass. In the distance, Santana heard thunder, and she swore under her breath. Stupid New York City meteorologists, they'd predicted good weather. She needed to get home.

"If you stay with her, and something happens and you get scared and run, you're going to hurt her, and she doesn't need any more of that. She needs people around her who will love her when she's beautiful and love her even more when she's ugly as fuck. If you're going to do this, you have to be in it all the way. You have to take the worse with the bad and hang on while you wait for the good."

"… I can't."

The words hung in the air as Rachel turned around and looked at Santana. Tears flowed steadily down her cheeks again as she shook her head.

"I can't do it," she whispered with a shrug. "I thought I could but after today…" She gestured toward her lip. "And I don't want to hurt her anymore, Santana. I just want her to be happy, like you do."

"I know," Santana said. She surprised herself by crossing the floor to hug Rachel, holding the girl to her for a moment.

"You'll tell her… tell her that I'm sorry?" Santana nodded, and Rachel sniffled. "I know it's not enough but I am sorry, Santana."

"I know," Santana said again, as thunder clapped outside. She let Rachel go and turned towards the door, but Rachel's voice stopped her.

"Take care of her."

She wanted to roll her eyes, because seriously, how was that an appropriate thing to say? Of course she'd take care of her.

"I always do, Rachel." Like she'd promised.

Once again Rachel stopped her on her way out of the bedroom.

"Will you tell her…" She trailed off.

"Tell her what?" Santana said, a little impatiently. The thunder was closer now. She had to get home.

"Tell her I…" Rachel shook her head. "Never mind."

"Yeah." She felt like she should say something else to Rachel, something to make the girl stop looking as if her puppy had just gotten kicked, but Santana wasn't sure she had the words for something like this. Still, she tried.

"Look, for what it's worth… thank you." She offered Rachel a half-hearted smile. "You made her happy, and you were good with Beth, and I know she won't forget that. I won't either. So thanks."

Brittany was still sat on the couch, watching the news, when Santana came back into the living room. "You have to go home to Beth, huh?" she said.

"Yeah, babe, I'm sorry."

"I know how it is," Brittany shrugged. She stood up and hugged Santana to her, brushing her girlfriend's hair back from her face. "Don't leave," she said.

"Britt, I have to get h-"

"No, don't leave New York," Brittany said. "Call your parents, San, and get some help for you and Quinn. But don't leave. Don't leave your home and your job, don't leave me." She leaned down and kissed Santana gently. "I love you. And as much as Quinn deserves Rachel, you deserve me. You deserve to be happy. Just… think about it."

Santana didn't have the heart to tell Brittany that Rachel wasn't going to be a part of Quinn's life anymore, and as the thunder grew louder and the rain began to pound against the glass, she realized she didn't have time. She gave Brittany another brief kiss and for the second time that day she was running for her apartment.

Today, she loathed rain. She didn't take a moment to look at her reflection in the windows she ran past; even if she had she'd have seen herself as grotesque, deformed, a freak. She didn't bother lighting a cigarette, didn't even bother saying excuse me to the people she plowed past – who said excuse me in New York anyway? She could barely concentrate on anything but her steps, the thoughts warring inside her head. Quinn, Rachel, Brittany… for a second she wondered perversely if this is what Quinn felt like all the time, having a constant battle inside her mind, a thousand different feelings and _people_ battling for dominance.

She wondered how her sister didn't go insane. That thought made her stop dead in her tracks, and Santana started laughing. She laughed at the absurdity of it, at the pain of it, she laughed so hard her sides shook until she was sobbing, and she sobbed all the way home.

The door banged against the wall as she slammed inside her apartment, wet and dripping on the landing. One look at the closet door in the hall and… she furrowed her brow. The door was wide open. No Quinn. Every single door was open, her bedroom, her bathroom, Quinn's bedroom.

But there was no Quinn.

Santana stood in the living room, glancing around in confusion, wondering where her sister was. She thought about how she had left Quinn, how quiet and peaceful her sister had been, even after everything that had happened that day. There was something in the back of her mind, something… Her eyes widened.

She retraced her steps to Quinn's bedroom, where the door and the door to the closet stood wide open with no sign of her sister. Only the door to Quinn's bathroom was pulled partly closed; an inch of light silhouetted the room in an eerie glow as thunder once again crashed outside.

"Quinn?" Santana said in a near whisper, wrapping her fingers around the door. "Quinn, you in here?"

No answer.

"Beth?"

Slowly, she pulled the door open.

"Oh god… oh god, Quinn."

Santana fumbled in her pocket for her phone. She dropped it on the floor and screamed in frustration; she picked it back up and numbly her fingers dialed the three numbers.

"Quinn, oh god, no…"


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N: We're almost at the home stretch, patient readers. Just a couple more chapters to go. Thanks for reading and being so wonderful while I take nearly 3 years to finish a fic!**

**TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: Attempted suicide. Please use discretion while reading.**

* * *

The detective's name wasn't Colley; in fact, Quinn hadn't been sure what his name was at all, because she hadn't bothered to look at him as he walked her out to the car. At least she wasn't in cuffs. Still, sat in the back of the squad car she was cold, and she hugged Colley to her.

_Cold means you're alive, and you're lucky to be that_. Quinn rolled her eyes at herself. Her stomach still hurt, the product of having poison sucked out of her, she guessed. That and she was probably hungry. It didn't matter, though. She didn't want anything to eat. There was no point.

Santana had found her. Found her and dialed 911, then sank to the floor of Quinn's bathroom and cradled her sister's head in her lap, sobbing and begging her to stay. Quinn wasn't sure if she'd dreamed everything or if she'd been just conscious enough, but it seemed she distinctly remembered Santana telling her that she had a lot to live for, if she would open her eyes and see it. "I'll never leave you." Santana always said that.

She didn't remember anything about the ride in the ambulance or having her stomach pumped. She didn't know that if Santana had been a second later finding her, it would've been too late, and that Santana had offered up a quick thank you to God, for once, for a thunderstorm. She didn't know that it had taken Santana an hour to get to the hospital herself because she had to answer all the questions from the police first, all while wondering if her sister was still alive. Mami and Papi had spent $900 in money they didn't really have to fly to New York, and Mami cried when Quinn's brothers and sisters – even Anna who had gotten proposed to three days before – had insisted on coming with them. "We're like the Army," Papi once said proudly. "We leave no one behind."

She remembered coming to in one of the patient rooms of the ER. Her stomach hurt and her arm hurt like hell because apparently one of the nurses used an IV tube that was too big for her vein at first and had tried to push it in rather than use another. She heard the steady beep of the monitors, the drip of the IV; she opened her eyes and saw sad eyes staring at her from every angle and automatically her head and heart started to hurt. She'd never done this before, had never thought of doing this before, not to them. So she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, not responding to Mami's questions or Papi's endless fussing over her. Eventually they'd left to get some food and she finally talked to the one person that could always make her come back to reality.

And now here she was, in the back of a patrol car on her way to the mental hospital. Alone.

Everything about this seemed familiar. Stuck in the backseat of a car, her few belongings held in a Ziploc bag (minus any belts or chemicals or anything that could be used for a 2nd attempt) and a scared girl clutching a teddy bear. But she wasn't wearing a dress and mary jane shoes at least; just Santana's old sweats (waist tie removed) and her tennis shoes – without the laces.

They'd checked on her every 15 minutes. It didn't matter that her room was full of parents and Santana and their siblings. It didn't matter that Mami sat next to the bed holding her hand and crying and that Papi kept alternating between fussing with her pillows and yelling at the doctors. A nurse had peeked into the door every 15 minutes, stared at Quinn, then left. Papi told Quinn she was lucky; normally a nurse would sit in the room.

Lucky. She glanced at the window of the patrol car; it was raining, making her reflection warp and melt in the glass. Her eyes were wet, alternating from clear to confused, as if Quinn was trying to figure out which "me" she wanted to be.

_Scattered pieces of who I am…_

The patrol car drove onward, bringing them closer to a destination that had always had a presence in Quinn's nightmares. She'd heard the stories. She'd watched and read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She knew the rumors about these places, and she was terrified to learn firsthand. She wanted home. She wanted home and her bed with its clean sheets and comfy blankets, Colley tucked under her chin as she fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. And yet she wanted nothing. She wanted nothing and everything, too much, all at once, and Quinn was exhausted with the battle.

She'd hit Rachel. Quinn couldn't stop thinking about it. It didn't matter if it had been one of the personalities; everything she'd done while switched was still her. _She_ had hit Rachel. She felt the tears begin to trickle down her cheeks again and Quinn sniffled, using the cuff of her sweatshirt to wipe her eyes.

She'd done some weird, awful things while she was switched, but this… this was the worst. Beth was sweet, she did little more than cry and color, or throw tantrums when she didn't get her way. She'd kicked Papi and Santana a few times, but had never really hurt them. She didn't know the other personalities well enough, but she was fairly certain that they didn't do anything major, or Santana or her shrink would have mentioned it. But now one of them had done something she had never, ever wanted to do, and the knowledge had made her sick.

Made her want to die. And she'd failed.

"_Sure you don't want to eat something?"_

_A shake of her head._

_Santana sighed. "Q, come on. You know if you don't they'll keep you there longer. Just… a little something. To make Mami smile?"_

"_Don't bring her into this, I feel bad enough."_

"_Feel bad for her, or yourself?"_

_Quinn said nothing, only rolled over in the bed away from Santana and stared at the wall. She heard Santana sigh._

"_I just know you don't… want to be here. And I don't mean in this hospital. I just mean here… in general."_

"_No, I don't."_

"_I know how you f-"_

"_Don't!" Whether Santana meant it to or not, her words had the desired reaction and Quinn shot up in her bed to stare at her sister. A nurse chose that exact moment to peek her head in, and Quinn clenched her fists, glaring at her until she left, and she turned back to Santana._

"_Don't you fucking _dare_ tell me you know how I feel. You have no idea."_

_Santana rolled her eyes, looking older than her years as she regarded Quinn wearily. "I've lived with you since you were seven, I think I have a good idea."_

"_Are you me?" Quinn asked. She twisted her hands in her lap, looking down at them. "Are you sitting in this bed waiting to be taken to a mental hospital? Because if you're not, I don't think you have any right to say you have a good idea of what this is like."_

"_So seeing you when you switch, seeing you turn into 'different people,' that doesn't count for anything? I've been there, Quinn. I've seen you switch, I've helped you, hell, I've fucking pulled you off of people when you hurt them."_

_Quinn winced. She knew that was true, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same as having them live in her head… She hated all of it. Switching, losing her memories of what happened while she was switched. Not being able to stop it. Never being able to tell anyone without them running away from her. People at school laughing at her, calling her a 'freak.' Never finding another person who understood. Reading all the books she could get her hands on, endless hours spent talking to psychiatrists, psychologists. Medication to control her moods, to fight the depression. To keep her from being in a hospital, from trying to kill herself… She guessed she'd need a stronger medication now._

"_Quinn…" Santana reached over, her hand around Quinn's. "We can get through this."_

"_Quit, okay?" Quinn jerked her hands out from under Santana's and turned her glare to her sister. "Quit trying to save me, when we both know you can't."_

The hospital was 45 minutes from the city; Quinn hugged Colley closer to herself and closed her eyes. The rain fell harder against the glass; she thought she heard thunder and her first instinct was to curl up on the backseat, but the seatbelt prevented that, and she knew it wouldn't look good to the officer who had had to stay two hours past his shift's end to take her. His hair was blonde, like her da- like Russell Fabray's.

"I'm sorry," Quinn whispered. "I'll be good, I promise."

In the mirror, the officer quirked an eyebrow at her, and Quinn shook her head.

"Nothing."

"_I'm not trying to save you."_

_That made Quinn smile a little, even if it was sad, strained. Everyone had been trying to save her, from the moment she was seven years old. First whoever it was that had called the police – Quinn had never found out who it was, but she'd always wanted to give him or her a hug and say thank you. Then Mami and Papi, Anna, Juan, Santana, even Miguel, who had showed up in the hospital with his PSP, somehow thinking that playing video games would take Quinn's mind off not wanting to live. The ER staff, her shrinks, the annoying nurse with the sneer who once again poked her head into the room… they all wanted to save her. She wanted to turn her face to the wall and pretend she didn't exist. Pretend she didn't need help, therapy, medication. Food. Love._

"_You've always tried to save me, Santana. And you ignore yourself to do it." Quinn reached out to touch her sister's hand. "Where's Brittany?"_

_When Santana flinched, Quinn nodded._

_She'd seen Santana checking her phone repeatedly, her fingers furiously dancing over the screen sending texts. She knew it was probably Brittany on the receiving end. Santana hadn't said much about anything, just that she'd seen Rachel – yes she's okay, Quinn – and had talked to Brittany. Quinn could only imagine how that had gone._

"_I think she really loves you, San," she said, toying with her hospital gown._

"_I think she does too."_

"_And you love her, too."_

_Santana was blushing, but she nodded. "I think I do," she admitted. But her blush disappeared and she fixed her gaze on Quinn. "But this isn't about me, it's about you."_

"_Don't you see that that's the problem?" Quinn asked, exasperated. She shook her head again. "Ever since I was 7, it's been about me, Santana. Never about you, about what you want, what you need. You can't keep taking care of m-"_

"_Yes, I can, and I will."_

_She wanted to get up, to pace around the room, but there was that damn nurse again. She settled for drumming her fingers on her thigh, feeling hopelessly, utterly exhausted. She was tired. So very, very tired._

"_I don't want this anymore," Quinn said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "You're always giving up things for me. Jobs, an education, love, _life_. I'm tired of it, Santana. You deserve better than this, and I'm not going to let you keep doing it."_

"_So you thought the solution was to fucking kill yourself? You thought that giving me, what, life, meant you had to be six feet under? You're a fucking idiot."_

"_Please don't get a job as a motivational speaker."_

_That caused Santana to smile a little. Her phone beeped and she glanced down at it, then back up at Quinn apologetically._

"_You love her," Quinn said again. "I know you love me too, but please stop making me your life, Santana. I can't take it anymore."_

That was definitely thunder, and Quinn felt her hands begin to shake. No, she told herself. You're not doing this. You're not allowed. She snorted at the absurdity of it. Like Beth and the other personalities had ever listened to her before. If she'd been able to control it, stop it… Rachel wouldn't have been hurt. Rachel with her beautiful face, her beautiful voice, her everything. And now Quinn had ruined it.

She felt a little selfish, being more upset about hurting someone she'd only known for a couple of months, when she'd hurt the people in her family for years. But Rachel was different, she had been different. Quinn knew she didn't fully understand; no one who didn't have this curse could understand fully what it was like, but she was at least trying. And it had given Quinn hope, hope that this time, things would turn out all right. Things would be different, she'd finally be able to love someone and have them love her in return. She could have a life, and even if it didn't work out with Rachel maybe she'd at least have the courage to try again instead of giving up every single time. Keeping her heart at the bottom of a closet during a thunderstorm.

But nothing had changed.

"_You're not my life, Quinn."_

"_Then you'll stay here when I go back to Lima?"_

_Santana turned pale. "So you're leaving?"_

_Quinn shrugged. "Mami and Papi want me to."_

She leaned back against the seat and thought about what life would be like, back in Lima. Back to the little house at the end of the street. Back to her room with its quilt on the bed, the pale walls with her art posters and the toys in a box under the bed. Curling up on the couch to watch the news with Papi, helping Mami with dinner. And maybe they'd let her take classes at the community college, once they were convinced that she could be alone. Anna was getting married; maybe she'd have a kid soon and Quinn could help babysit, to get a little extra money. If things went well they might even let her get a part-time job somewhere. Library, maybe, that'd be nice.

She could always visit New York again. She didn't have to live there to be happy. She wouldn't miss it. Not their little apartment with the heating and air that never worked right. Her room with books and papers thrown everywhere, even on the floor. Not having to share a bathroom with people. She wouldn't miss the coffee shop on the corner, her classes at NYU. The sunlight on her face in the park.

A smile. A laugh. Argyle. A voice that seemed to touch God.

She wouldn't miss it at all…

"_I guess I'll pack our stuff."_

_Quinn punched her mattress with her fist. "No, damn it!" Out of the corner of her she saw Santana draw back slightly, and the tears started._

"_I w-won't let you," Quinn said. "I don't want you to go with me, I want you to stay here." She reached out and grabbed at Santana's hand. "Stay here, Santana. Stay here in New York, with Brittany, and be happy in your life for once, without worrying about me."_

"_Quinn, I don't need-"_

"_If you want to take care of someone, take care of Rachel!"_

_Santana quirked an eyebrow, and Quinn sighed. "I want you to take care of _yourself_," she clarified, then shifted her eyes to the wall next to her. "But, you know, if you can make sure Rachel's okay, in between taking care of yourself and Brittany…"_

She knew Rachel wouldn't come back to her. How could she, after being punched in the face by someone who wasn't even mentally herself when she did it? She was so stupid to think that she'd ever be able to find love, anyone who would want her even with all the uncertainty, all the fear, all the ugliness of being Quinn Lopez.

But that didn't mean that Quinn didn't still want Rachel. That she wanted what she wouldn't be able to have: a life free from hurting, both herself and others. She just wanted somebody to love. For someone to love her.

So she'd given up. It was easier to just give up. To take the pills, to lie down on the cold bathroom floor and let them do the work. To know that she wouldn't have to hurt people anymore, and that she wouldn't have to hurt. She knew what people always said, that suicide was selfish, but no one had the right to judge, Quinn thought. So she'd just given up. And then she'd woken up in the hospital, her throat raw and her stomach hurting. To everyone's tears and Papi's pronouncement that she was going home.

The patrol car pulled up to what would be Quinn's home for the next week. Well, she hoped it would be a week, she knew the doctors had the power to increase her stay to nearly a month, if she needed it. She wouldn't need it. Quinn hadn't ever been in this position before but she was pretty sure she'd be able to play the system. All she needed to do was appear contrite, appear stable, and appear normal.

The officer opened up his door then came around to Quinn's side, opening her door and smiling at her, waiting for her to get out. She figured he was grateful that she hadn't acted too crazy, hadn't screamed or talked to voices in her head, hadn't thrown up in his backseat or worse. She couldn't smile back at him; he was like the chaplain leading her to her execution, and she'd refused his prayers for her salvation. Quinn rolled her eyes; too many hours in literature classes were making her melodramatic.

A passerby who somehow ignored the fact that they were on the main campus of another hospital would've mistaken Quinn's latest prison for a house, at least on the outside. Painted in white, with a black slate roof, numerous trees shaded the building and gave it a homey, peaceful look that Quinn knew didn't even hint at what was going on inside. Just like blonde hair, hazel eyes, and pale pink lips that nearly always curled upwards into a casual smirk. She hung back on the porch, just outside the door, wanting to dig in her heels and refuse to go.

The officer smiled at her and awkwardly patted her shoulder; Quinn recoiled away and clung tighter to Colley, staring at him. He cleared his throat. "You'll be all right," he said. "This is a nice place. Isn't that right, Amy?" He swung the door open and ushered Quinn inside, into the bright lights of the hospital.

Quinn blinked, feeling herself tremble.

The nurse who stepped in from one of the other rooms seemed to be the exact same age as Quinn, but with the air of authority that came with her position. Still, her smile was kind as she directed it towards Quinn; she came around the front desk to stand in front of them.

"Hey, John," she greeted the officer, quickly signing off on his paperwork. He tipped his head at her and left, eager to get home and finally end his shift so he could sleep. Now Quinn and the nurse were left alone with the door locked behind them.

"Hi there. What's your name?" the nurse called Amy asked gently, her eyes sweeping over Quinn and taking in everything. The sweats, the laceless shoes, the tired expression. The teddy bear.

"Quinn Celeste Lopez," she answered quietly. She saw the nurse staring at Colley and she momentarily panicked. She knew she wasn't technically supposed to bring anything with her but clothes, but she _needed_ Colley. "Please don't take him?" she whispered.

The nurse smiled sympathetically. "It's all right, honey," she said. "You can keep him. You're going to stay with us for a little while, okay?"

She felt seven years old again. "I want to go home."

"I know, and you will. But not right now. We have to get you better first."

Better. Quinn almost snorted. She would never be better. Amy led her through a door labeled Intake, sitting her down and shuffling through a mound of papers before she began asking questions. Quinn zoned her out quickly, answering the questions automatically while her mind, as usual, went somewhere else. She thought about home, about Santana. Lima and New York, Fabray and Lopez. About Beth and Puck and everyone else crammed into her head like an overcrowded hotel. Names she knew, names she didn't.

No, she'd never be better. Thunder boomed outside; Quinn closed her eyes as she answered, and gave in. In five minutes the nurse would make a phone call to the resident psych, who would run downstairs as fast as his legs would take him. He'd skid to a stop in the doorway and stare, first at his nurse, and then at the young woman, the new patient… curled under the desk with her thumb in her mouth.

And as Beth kept crying in the mental hospital, begging for someone, anyone, to "find Ray, I want Ray," in the city Santana entered the ER waiting room and sat down, next to a girl with brown hair and worried brown eyes, and entirely too much argyle.


	12. Chapter 11

_A/N: Been a while, I know. Sorry about that. Thanks to everyone still reading._

* * *

"Is this seat taken?"

There were many voices in Quinn's life, each of them battling for dominance in her head. Ghostly memories that murmured softly, too far for her to truly hear, too close for her to block out. Then there were the louder ones that also never let go: a woman's voice, high and thin. _Don't take my Quinnie!_ A man's voice, deep and falsely reassuring. _Don't worry, Quinn, you'll never be away from me forever._ Those two voices stayed just beyond her periphery, loud enough for her to hear, constant enough for her to ache.

And then there were the ones that she sometimes forgot, the voices that took with her time and space and memory. That replaced her waking hours with confusion, with fear, with the painful realization that she'd struck someone… she loved. The voices that were her reason for sitting here, "alone" save for the nurse; in a "library" that was little more than a small room with a cart full of books.

But there were other voices that ruled those out: a tender lullaby sung in Spanish; the gravelly tone of a man with a beard that tickled her face as he hugged her. A sarcastic voice that spoke of homework and jobs around a mouthful of food, a swig of beer, a smile only hers. Voices of love to turn the icy winter of her disorder into a roaring fire.

It was easy for Quinn to separate the voices of her life into categories: those she wanted to hear, and those she didn't. Her parents and her personalities fit into one, her family the other. But this voice, this voice that addressed her with hope and caution, this quiet little sound… was a gray area. She figured it was a vestige of Beth that she liked colors so much; when she was Quinn she liked words, fashioning them into a map of rhyme and reason, but when she was Beth she preferred color, life and vibrancy lifting off a page of SpongeBob or superhero coloring sheets. The color was gray, Quinn thought, keeping her eyes focused on the book in front of her. _What to Expect When You're Expecting._

Wanting and not wanting, rejecting and needing, black and white melting together until there was… nothing.

"Quinn?"

And then a splash of color. A green, maybe, light and fresh as a flower, winding around her wrist to her chest and tugging close. She actually stopped and pressed her hand to her heart, the spine of the book clacking to the table and Quinn winced.

"You shouldn't be here."

Of course the seat wasn't taken, she was the only one sat at that particular table. No one else liked to have visiting hours there, in the too-small room with its faded paint and tattered, used books – maybe ten of them – on the dingy gray cart.

Library. Right.

"You don't want to be here."

She knew the dance her companion would have had to go through for the right to even seat herself at Quinn's side, as she was doing now. The first step would be at the door, when the guard would have had to let her in. She'd have had to leave everything in her car except her keys, and Quinn knew what a lost feeling it could be, all the security of cell phone, purse, had she brought snacks? being left behind. Feeling as if you were being taken… where? To an execution chamber? No, only a desk. A simple desk commandeered by a woman bent from too many hours with not enough pay, who directs you to sign a sheet and fill out a nametag. Name, date, relationship to patient.

Quinn stole a glance at the tag. One word, in a solid, even-handed black.

Friend.

Ha, Quinn thought. A friend. Rachel was less, and Rachel was more, and everything in between. She couldn't exactly put girlfriend, and although "sister" would have worked, that would have been way too awkward.

"No, I don't," Rachel said, and Quinn smiled a little, grateful for the honesty. Too many people thought skirting around the truth was the easiest thing for her. The only people in her life who had ever been brutally honest with her had been her therapists, and that was one of the tricks of their trade. Never get involved.

But Rachel was involved, and she was honest.

"Then you should leave." She turned back to the book, flipping its pages and trying to seem indifferent. That she wasn't indifferent, that she could never be indifferent to Rachel Berry, was going to be her greatest crime in life. She wasn't sure if she could love her or hate her, she wasn't sure if it wasn't perhaps a mixture of both. But she knew that no matter where she was or what she did, she could never be indifferent to the woman that was Rachel Berry.

The worst thought was that maybe, someday, Rachel Berry would be indifferent to _her_.

_The only way to be positively positive that you're pregnant – at least this early on – is to produce that positive pregnancy test. But that doesn't mean your body is staying mum on whether you're about to be a mom._

"You're right, I should."

But she didn't, and so Quinn sighed inwardly. She didn't want this, to talk to Rachel, to sit with her, to be in her presence. She could barely stop herself from sneaking little glances at her from out of the corner of her eye; it was just enough for her to make out the healing cut on her lip. The cut she had put there, four days ago.

"I'm sorry." It was such a simple phrase, such inadequate words to convey how she truly felt about the reddened mark on Rachel's lip, the mark that she had caused. The mark that she was terrified was just a precursor of future marks. Not just on her lips, but on Rachel's heart, her soul.

Quinn Fabray was terrified that she could destroy Rachel Berry, just by virtue of being herself. The thought would be maddening, if she wasn't already mad.

We're all mad here. Quinn smiled to herself a little.

"I know," and just as her own apology had seemed simply and inadequate, Rachel's was such a simple statement of fact, carrying with it so much weight, so much truth, that Quinn felt like she could sob if she had any tears left.

"And I know it was you-and-not-you, that you weren't in control, that you never meant it to happen. I know that if you could've stopped it you would have, and that it wasn't my fault. I also know it wasn't yours. And I forgive you."

"How can you?" She didn't lift her eyes from the page, terrified that if she did so she'd be confronted with Rachel's deep brown ones, understanding and loving. For a split second she hoped that if she was ever actually successful in dying, and was lucky enough to go to heaven, Rachel would be the God waiting for her.

"I wouldn't forgive me."

"That's why you're here."

"Oh, so you're an armchair psychologist now?" Quinn exploded, finally slamming the book shut and shifting around to look at Rachel. The sight of the fading wound on her lip made Quinn almost lose her resolve, as did the familiar argyle and the barely-there curl of Rachel's hair against her shoulders. But she couldn't stop the words, the frustration that her carefully-constructed four day wall of no visitors had just been fairly bulldozed.

"So tell me, where did you earn your degree? The Rachel Berry School of I Know Everything, Especially About Quinn? What are your credentials? What is my diagnosis, Rachel? Child from a broken home, abused and abandoned, crazy psycho bitch with voices in her head, destroying everything she comes into contact with? But oh, if she could just find someone to love her she'd be just fine? What's your treatment? A hug? Kisses? Wait, wait, I know, a really good fuck, that'll fix me right up, won't it?"

"Is there a problem here?" the nurse asked from the corner, as at the same time Rachel asked softly, "Feel better?"

"Yes, I do," Quinn retorted, and then shook her head at the nurse. "I'm fine."

She was fine.

She was fine, and she was tired. The medication they'd been giving her to help her sleep wasn't working except to make her feel groggy and disoriented the next day. She longed to curl up in her bed at Mami and Papi's house, her head snuggled up against Colley. She'd be able to sleep, blissfully sleep, but no, she still had another ten days to go in this hellhole.

She'd feel a lot better if Rachel would stop staring at her.

"Go home, Rachel," she said wearily.

"I love you."

Quinn's mouth dropped open. "N-no you don't," she said, shaking her head. "You're just saying that, and that's really… _cruel_."

Rachel's smile was sad but knowing; Quinn didn't realize that Rachel had expected this, all of this, just because of a conversation in an ER waiting room, 4 days ago.

"_Why are you here?"_

"_Why wouldn't I be?" Rachel's face was tearstained, and she held a ragged tissue in her hand that was really nothing more than shreds. _

"_She's going back to Lima."_

"_Oh."_

"_That all you got to say?" Santana said, her tone slightly mocking._

"_What do you expect me to say?"_

"_That you're going to take care of her, that she won't have to leave New York, that she'll be safe with you. That you may not understand everything but you're going to try."_

"_You don't want me to say any of that."_

"_Nope."_

"_But you know I'm going to try anyway."_

"_Yup."_

_And there it was, a kind of grudging acceptance. There was a slight grin on Santana's face, mirrored on Rachel's, and they regarded each other with a sort of "I don't really like you but I think you just became family" realization._

_At least until Santana looked away. "If you hurt—"_

"_I love her."_

"_Doesn't mean you won't hurt her."_

"_It means I'll fight like hell not to."_

_Santana sighed. "You've got a rough road ahead of you, do you get that? I mean I barely tolerate you, and my parents, my brothers and sisters? Do you have any idea how protective of that girl they are? They don't want her here, they never wanted her here, and they're going to try to keep her away from anyone that says she should stay, that she belongs."_

"_I'm not worried about you, or your parents, or your siblings. My concern is Quinn." Rachel brushed off her skirt, as if to ward off any further negativity, and she looked at Santana, her lips set into a tight line of determination._

"_Your downfall in this argument, Santana, will be the fact that _you_ do not know _me_. You neither know who I am nor what I have had to fight for in my own life. You haven't the slightest idea how protective _I_ am of Quinn, but also protective of myself. I know who I am and what I need, what I want, what I deserve. Quinn is neither a crutch nor an object of my savior complex. I know I can't heal her, despite what you may think of me, and I don't want to heal her. I just want to be there. I just want to be with her."_

"_What about what she wants?"_

"_Not for anyone else to decide. Not even you."_

"_She'll fight you," Santana shrugged. "She's good at coming up with eight hundred reasons why no one should love her."_

"_I have eight hundred and one reasons. So I win."_

_Santana rolled her eyes, and Rachel smirked. "She'll be mean to you, say ugly stuff, just to try to get you to leave."_

"_I'm a big girl. I can handle it."_

"_I hope to god you can," Santana said, pushing on her knees with her hands and standing up._

"_Because if you can, maybe you really will save her."_

"I am not 'just saying that.'" Rachel reached out to touch Quinn, only to draw back when Quinn jerked away before their fingers met.

Quinn hated herself for the flicker of hurt that danced over Rachel's face. But it disappeared quickly, and she turned back to the book.

_Your pregnancy may not be showing in your belly yet, but it's most certainly showing on your face. Here's the good, bad, and the ugly about face care when you're expecting._

"I love you," Rachel said again, quietly. "I know you don't believe me, and that's okay. I know you're going to try to push me away, and that's okay too. I want you to know that if you really don't want me here, all you have to do is say it, and I'll leave. I'll go, and I won't come back, and that'll be the end of it. Of us. All you have to do is say it."

She wanted to say it so badly that her fingers itched. There was no way that any good could come out of her being with Rachel, even if hearing the girl say she loved her had sent Quinn's heart soaring, had given her a glimmer of hope that she hadn't felt since she'd swallowed the first pill. Being with Rachel would cause nothing but heartache, for _Rachel_, and Quinn couldn't bear to do that to her, not anymore. What if she hit her again? What if she did worse to her when she was switched? It would be so much better for Quinn to just walk away, to leave New York and Rachel behind. It would be so much better for both of them if she just told Rachel to leave.

She opened her mouth… and said nothing.

For the rest of the visit, Quinn said nothing, and neither did Rachel. Quinn simply sat there, flipping the pages of the book but not reading, or even seeing, the words. She knew that Rachel probably was wondering what the book was, and why Quinn might be reading it, but to Rachel's credit, she didn't ask. She just sat there, resting her chin on one hand, the fingers of her other hand flat on the table. Close to Quinn, but not touching.

Just there.

Ten minutes later the nurse announced that Rachel's visiting time was over, because the Lopez clan would be arriving any minute. Rachel just smiled and nodded, before finally saying to Quinn, with a gentle look, "See you tomorrow, sweetheart."

_Sweetheart._

It was the only thing Quinn heard for the remainder of the day, even as her mother and father and brothers and sisters chattered to her, filling her mind with nothingness, mindless rapport that spoke volumes of their willingness to ignore the fact that she had tried to end her life.

Santana sat close by, holding her hand. Just before they left she leaned down to kiss Quinn's cheek.

"She coming back tomorrow?"

Quinn drew back surprised, and then shrugged. "Maybe?"

Santana smiled. "She will."

And though Quinn wouldn't know it until later, when a nurse told her, Santana was right, because the next day that found her sat in the main visitor's room, a coloring book in front of her, Rachel walked in.

She walked in and sat down, all breathless and cold from the rain, with the scent of wet leaves and something spicy around her. She sat down and smiled at the girl next to her.

"Ray?"

A pause.

"I'm here, Beth," Rachel said. "I'm here."

Rachel came every day after that, and every day Quinn tried to tell her to leave. Every night before, she'd think of the words, carefully crafted sentences of regret and rejection, of dashed hopes, of finality. And every time Rachel would visit, every time she'd walk through the door of the visiting room or the "library," every time she smiled at Quinn in that cautious "who am I talking to today? But I still love you no matter what" way, every resolve Quinn had flew out the window.

"I have a new personality," she said on the 8th day.

Rachel looked up from where she was studying the pattern on the table. "You do?"

"Yeah."

"Girl or guy?"

"Lucy."

Rachel nodded thoughtfully. "That's a nice name."

"She thinks I'm pregnant."

Rachel drew back a little in shock, and tilted her head. "Well, that's…" She pointed to the book in front of Quinn.

"That explains that."

_Physical and mental fatigue can also exacerbate the symptoms of morning sickness (conversely, severe morning sickness can increase fatigue)._

"She keeps asking the nurses what she should do with the baby, if she should keep it or give it up for adoption."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen. Or seventeen, it's not really clear."

Rachel's eyes were sympathetic, and Quinn wasn't sure if she hated the girl for it, or fell in love with her a little more.

"Sometimes I can feel her, I think, or at least feel like I know she's there. A couple times I've 'woken up' with my hand on my stomach. I wonder what it would be like if there was an actual baby. Then again I think I have enough people inside me."

To her surprise, Rachel laughed. It was a strong, melodic, entirely not mocking laugh, and Quinn found herself grinning a little.

But Rachel reached for her hand, and Quinn pulled away.

For the rest of the visit, they said nothing.

"Do you still want to leave?" Santana asked her later.

Quinn had asked that she come alone; as much as she loved her parents their constant talk was tiring, and she wanted the chance to just be quiet for a while. Santana was the only other person with whom Quinn could sit and say nothing, the only person with whom words weren't necessary. Quinn had only met one other person who was as in tune with her as her sister was, and that was unnerving.

"It'd be the best thing for all of us."

"Best way for you to hide."

"I'm not hiding," Quinn said through clenched teeth, even though she knew the truth.

"Then what are you going to do when you get there? What kind of job will you get?"

"Surely there's a position for resident freak show somewhere."

"God, would you just fucking stop it?" Santana threw up her hands, bringing them down with a thump against the table. Quinn winced. "Sorry," Santana said apologetically. "But come on, baby sis, you've got to stop the woe is me act eventually."

"I thought that's the act you wanted me to have, so you could act like my knight in shining armor?"

"Only you're locked up in the tower for the rest of your life, and this is a fucking stupid metaphor anyway."

"Rachel loves metaphors…"

"Rachel loves you."

"I know," Quinn whispered. She looked at Santana. "Since when did you become such a big Rachel fan?"

Santana sighed and leaned in, resting her head on Quinn's shoulder. Quinn kissed the top of her head gently. "You've put us through a lot of shit but you never once tried to kill yourself for it. If you felt so bad about what you did to _Rachel_ that you wanted to die, she has to be pretty damn special."

"Do you… realize how messed up that is?" Quinn said, quirking an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Oh, I do," Santana mused. "But like you said, Rachel's big on symbolism and metaphor and all that other shit you guys learn in college, so I figured she'd appreciate it."

"How's Brittany?" Quinn asked suddenly, and instantly regretted it for the pained look on Santana's face.

"She's mad," she said with a shrug. "I keep trying to explain things, trying to help her see what it's been like, but she doesn't get it."

"San?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want me to stay for me and Rachel, or do you want me to stay for you and Brittany?"

"That's a low blow, Q, and you know it," Santana snapped, but sighed as she visibly deflated, pulling away from Quinn.

"I want you to stay because New York needs you, and you need New York. That obnoxious little loud mouth with the crappy clothes and the—"

"San."

"Big smile full of love for you and the flawless pitch and the voice of an angel who is just practically perfect in every w—"

"Santana!"

"Rachel needs you. But more than that, she wants you. As you are. Warts and all."

"I'm not a frog."

"Well yeah, she kissed you."

"You suck."

Quinn feebly punched Santana in the shoulder, and her sister grinned.

"Look, I love Britt. And Britt knows that. But I've got more baggage than just you to get over."

The day before her last at the hospital came all too soon, or not soon enough, depending on who you asked. For Quinn, she was both relieved at the idea to be going home, and then… not exactly sure where home would be. She knew that Papi and her brothers and sisters had gone back to Lima, and that Mami was still in New York waiting for her decision. Quinn knew what decision Mami wanted. Knew what Santana wanted, what Rachel wanted, but she still wasn't sure what _she_ wanted.

Rachel breezed into the visiting room with all the air of someone on edge, nervous and expectant, but she didn't speak of any of it to Quinn. Instead she took up her normal routine of smiling at her and, seeing that it was Quinn and not one of the others, sitting next to her a little closer than normal. As if she was afraid it'd be their last time together, Quinn realized.

Rachel had come every day, when Quinn had finally been allowed visitors. Every day without fail, every day with nothing more than herself, a word or two, and a calm presence next to her. Every day she'd try to take Quinn's hand, and every day Quinn would pull away. But still Rachel didn't leave. Still Rachel stayed, whether she was greeted by Quinn or Beth, even though she didn't know if it'd be Puck snarling at her as soon as she entered the room, or Lucy with her heartbroken queries of "What do I do for my baby?"

They wouldn't say anything; Quinn would be sat there warring with herself, trying to come up with the simplest of words.

"I don't want you. Please leave."

Wondering why she couldn't say them. Six easy words, so easy to say in the "comfort" of her hospital room, but so difficult when faced with brown eyes and soft pink lips inviting with the memory of a kiss. Six words that faded away when faced with the imagining of a life together, of being held during a thunderstorm, of gentle touches giving way to urgency and moans. Of being loved.

Rachel's voice shattered the silence. It was small and insecure, mournful.

"Please just tell me. If you're going to tell me, tell me now. Do it, Quinn, break my heart. Because not knowing is worse."

Rachel's chin rested in her right hand, while her left was in its normal place – on the table, fingers flat and waiting. Close, but not close enough.

Quinn thought. About life, about Beth. Puck and Lucy, other names she didn't know, Mami and Papi and siblings. Rain. Thunder. And Rachel. Rachel with her gentleness and her love, her scared little voice and the fingers gently trembling against the weathered wood of the table.

Underneath her palm were gouges, deep wounds into the wood that Quinn had only seen just yesterday.

RL+BF

Quinn took a breath, and slid over her hand.

Fingertips touched, pinky against pinky. Quinn's hand slid further until Rachel turned over hers.

Their fingers locked.

Quinn looked up.

Rachel smiled, and Quinn smiled back.


	13. Chapter 12

**Warnings: child abuse**

* * *

Quinn's decision to stay in New York was of course met with resistance. So much that Papi and the Lopez clan flew back out to meet with her and attempt to change her mind. Mami was distressed, offering reasons why it would just be better, easier for Quinn to come back to Lima and let the family take care of her.

She cried when Quinn softly, gently told her that she'd found someone to help her take care of herself.

Rachel took the "Lopez Inquisition" well, fielding questions by Mami and Papi with all the grace and confidence of someone now known as The Girlfriend. But, she told Quinn, the hardest question came from Quinn's youngest brother.

He sat down and regarded Rachel with dark, searching eyes, and then tilted his head.

"Charizard or Cyndaquil?"

"Cyndaquil," Rachel replied immediately.

He stared at her for a moment longer, then nodded and stood up. "I like her."

After nearly a week of questions and getting to know Quinn's family, Rachel collapsed into Quinn's arms, exhausted, but happy and with an invitation to come with Quinn to Lima for Mami's birthday. Quinn smiled and nuzzled her nose into Rachel's hair, breathing in her scent.

"That wasn't so bad."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "It was horrific, and I am surprised I am not scarred for life."

Quinn grinned when Rachel kissed her quickly. "They love you already."

"I'm not so sure about that quite yet. Hey, how come _you_ didn't get the third degree?"

Brittany looked up from her position lying on the couch with her head in Santana's lap. "I'm just naturally acceptable."

She stuck out her tongue, and Rachel scoffed.

"Face it, Berry, Britt and I are just better than the two of you."

Quinn laughed as Rachel spluttered, trying to appear offended while also trying desperately not to laugh. She felt happy, Quinn thought.

No, not that. She _was_ happy. And that was a world of difference.

Her mother and Santana had picked her up from the hospital when she'd been released. Rachel had wisely stayed away, knowing that moment was for family and sending a message through Santana that she'd "See her whenever Quinn was ready."

She'd been ready two days later, unable to stay away for longer. Quinn knew the objections that her parents and Santana had to her being with Rachel; even with her grudging acceptance of Rachel Santana wasn't fully convinced that she would be good for Quinn, or, as she honestly told her sister, that she would be good for Rachel.

Lucky for Quinn, Brittany now kept Santana too distracted for her to voice many of her objections. And as they sat together in Quinn and Santana's too small living room, Quinn found herself thinking of that night long ago, when she was a seven year old scared little girl, in the backseat of a car on her way to an unknown world. Who would have imagined that this new life, these new people, would change everything? That in spite of it all, she was able to find family, security, and even love?

Quinn knew she wasn't "normal," that none of this would ever be "normal." She knew there were still too many things that she and Rachel would have to figure out, to overcome. Outside of Rachel, Quinn knew that she had a lot of work to do herself. There would be more therapy; no doubt there would be more personalities. She knew there would be tears and there would be fights, there would be Puck and Beth and this newest one, Lucy, that insisted Quinn put the baby book from the hospital into her bag when she left.

But through it all, Quinn hoped, there would be Rachel.

Rachel had settled in easily, probably far too easy for Quinn to be comfortable, but there it was. She had snuck her way into Quinn's heart and made her home; if Quinn was feeling particularly poetic, again, or ironic depending on how you looked at it, it was almost as if Rachel had become yet another of her personalities. Such was the quiet way in which Rachel was there, with only flashes of vibrancy and excitement simmering just under the surface. But unlike Puck, or Beth, or the others that lurked, Rachel was a constant, a simply _there_, a presence as strong as a kiss against her neck or a gentle hand on her cheek.

Normal or not, personalities or not, as she sat there on the floor of her living room and heard the knock on the apartment door, Quinn was hard-pressed to do anything but lean herself into Rachel and kiss her, hoping that the gesture would convey all her hopes, all her dreams. She hoped that in her kiss, it contained the one thing, the two words that would forever be her request of Rachel.

_Please stay._

"We're not expecting anybody, are we?" Quinn asked, breaking the kiss and smiling when Rachel ran a hand through her hair. She stood up and made the few short steps to the door.

"Probably the pizza guy. What?" Santana said when Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "I didn't want to cook."

Quinn rolled her eyes and opened the door. "Yes, can I help you?"

The woman seemed vaguely familiar to Quinn, like a memory that she couldn't quite place. It made her nervous, made her clutch the doorknob tighter as she watched the woman twist her hands in front of her, her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembling. Despite the woman's curious composure she seemed remarkably well put together, from the flowered blouse under the smart yellow jacket, accompanied by a yellow skirt and high heels. Her hair was pulled stiffly back in a bun, and Quinn tilted her head.

Blonde hair, like hers. Eyes, like hers. Eyes which widened, just as she heard the voice, breathy and relieved.

"_Quinnie."_

Her daughter took a step back.

"_Ma'am, you'll have to hurry."_

_Mommy hadn't changed out of her party dress, nor had she bothered to wipe off the mascara stains from her cheeks. It scared Quinn, and she wanted to reach up and pat Mommy's cheeks, to tell Mommy that it would be okay, that they could go downstairs and they could make cookies and Daddy would be happy again, instead of… where was he now? She hadn't seen him since he'd rode off in the backseat of that policeman's car._

_He'd looked so mad…_

_Quinn's bottom hurt, and so she didn't want to sit down as Mommy went through her drawers and selected things to put into Quinn's small Going to Grandma's suitcase. She didn't know why she still had that suitcase; Grandma had gone to heaven when she was four. Quinn didn't remember her, except that she was fun and happy and liked to sing and dance along with records. Quinn missed her._

"_L-let's pack your undies, okay, Quinnie?" _

_Quinn nodded, her thumb finding its way to her mouth. Daddy hated when she sucked her thumb, and would jerk her hand away any time he saw, slapping it. And Mommy would just smile sadly and say, "Try not to make Daddy mad, sweetheart. It'll be better for us both."_

"_M'sorry, Mommy," Quinn mumbled around her thumb. "I'll be good, I promise…"_

_Mommy barely looked at her. "Daddy isn't happy right now, but when you come home if you're a very good girl maybe he'll forgive you."_

_The officer made a funny noise; when Quinn looked at him he seemed angry, too. But not at her; he was glaring at Mommy._

"_Ma'am, please, we have to go."_

"_I don't want to go!" Quinn said with a stomp of her foot. "Staying here, with Mommy and Daddy. Mommy and Daddy and _me_, I'm a good girl. I am!"_

_The suitcase snapped shut, and Quinn jumped at the sound. Suddenly she was swept up in Mommy's arms, and Quinn winced at Mommy's arm tucked underneath her sore bottom._

"_I'll find you," Mommy said, kissing Quinn's cheeks over and over again. "I'll find you, and bring you home, and we'll be a family again. I promise. I'll find you."_

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Santana's voice was loud, angry, and Quinn flinched, even as she couldn't take her eyes off her mother. There was so much hope there, Quinn noted, so much hope past the pasted-on smile and the uncertainty. Decades of waiting, of wishing, imagining of what this moment would be like. Quinn knew it well.

Judy Fabray had been at Quinn's adoption, but it had been too much, too soon, and her daughter had cowered in the arms of her brother and hidden away. But as she grew older, the curiosity grew as well, and she wondered what life would have been like, if she'd gone back "home."

As much as she loved her adoptive family, as much as she needed Mami Lopez, Quinn would often, late at night when everyone else was sleeping, lie in her bed and imagine what it would be like, to see her mother again. She had no desire to see her father again, that was certain, but her mother… She used to dream that she'd be walking down the street and she'd hear her mother's voice. That she'd turn and see her mother standing there with her arms open, and Quinn would run into them. Her mother would take her home, and they'd make cookies and watch movies. There would be no anger, no hurt, no pain. No Russell Fabray. Just the two of them, happy and loved.

But that had never happened.

"No, really, I asked what the _hell_ are you doing here?" Santana was next to Quinn, then in front of her, half-shielding her sister.

"I came to speak to Quinn," Mrs. Fabray said primly, "Not to you."

"Yeah well we're kind of a package deal," Santana snapped. "Quinn, go back into the living room."

"What?" Quinn said dumbly.

"Santana, I don't think—" Rachel started.

"I said go back into the living room, Quinn. I'll _escort_ Mrs. Fabray out."

She could feel herself begin to fade. Everything was hazy; Quinn's arms felt loose and heavy hanging down by her sides. She could see Judy – her _mother's_ look of confusion.

"Quinnie? What's wrong, I just want to talk to you…"

"You're not _going_ to talk to her."

"What's _wrong_ with her?" Judy's voice was high-pitched now, frantic.

She was seven. Seven years old, in a pretty dress and ankle socks with lace. A little girl with tears in her eyes, being carried upstairs to her sentence.

_I'm sorry, Daddy…_

Quinn felt her thumb begin its ascent to her mouth, felt the world begin to go black…

And then, a hand in hers.

"Quinn?" Rachel's voice was soft, inquisitive, reassuring.

Quinn blinked, and the world came back into focus. She glanced down at Rachel, who was looking at her with concern and love.

"No."

Santana looked at her. "What?"

"I'll talk to her."

"Uh, no, you won't."

"San, I don't think that's your call to make." Brittany came over and put her hands on Santana's shoulder, gently steering her away from Judy, Rachel, and Quinn.

"But—"

"San. Just let them talk."

Rachel squeezed Quinn's hand gently, still looking worriedly at her. Judy glanced from Quinn to Rachel, her lips curling in obvious disapproval, and it took everything Quinn had not to lash out at her. Once again, Rachel's voice brought her back.

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

"No," Quinn confessed. "But I have to."

Rachel nodded and tilted it up as if to kiss Quinn's lips, then, realizing their audience, brushed a kiss to her cheek. "I'll just be in the kitchen with Santana and Brittany, then."

She vanished with one last squeeze to Quinn's hand.

Quinn watched her go, gratefully, before turning to… her mother.

"Hello."

"I… told you that I would find you," Mrs. Fabray said, looking awkward to still be stood in the doorway, but Quinn wasn't ready to invite her in.

"How _did_ you find me?"

"I-it wasn't difficult; I just searched your name on the internet and went from there. I thought about hiring a private detective, but your father thought that was rather friv…"

She stopped suddenly, as if she'd been caught in a lie, and Quinn wished she had.

"My father?" she said. "You're still…" Now it was Quinn's turn to stop, unable to finish the sentence.

"Oh, well, he's out, you see, and he needed me, I couldn't just turn my back on him. Everything is so much better now, and we want… we want you to come home sometimes, for visits. Christmases, holidays. You really should talk to him, Quinnie, he's so different now, and he's so sorry."

"I bet he is," Quinn said, curling and uncurling her fists at her side. "What exactly is he sorry for?" She couldn't help the anger inching into her voice, couldn't help the haze just off her periphery, the warning of danger.

Puck was on the prowl.

"I'm not sure I understand why you're being so hostile, Quinn," Judy said, casting her a look and then breezing into the apartment, brushing past Quinn to stand in the middle of the living room. "I know this is difficult, seeing me after all this time, and I know you probably don't trust your father but I-I said I'd find you."

Her voice faltered, and for a moment Quinn felt sorry for her. Almost.

"Why is he sorry?"

Mrs. Fabray sighed. "He's sorry that things ended up the way they have," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He's sorry that you're not home, that we're not a family."

"Oh."

She wanted those words to be true. She wanted to go back to Lima and see her father, to have him hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. And she needed her mom, needed to feel that love and support. Needed to have birthdays and Christmases with her family, holidays that didn't end up with her…

She looked at her mother. "Is he sorry that he beat me?"

Mrs. Fabray stepped back as if she'd been struck herself. "Q-Quinn, that's not a very nice—"

"Has he ever once said that he was sorry for beating me so hard he left bruises?" When Mrs. Fabray's eyes flicked away from Quinn's gaze, she knew she had her answer.

"You never protected me," Quinn said, her voice rising. "All you did was tell me that I needed to be good, I needed to be _better_, so he wouldn't get mad at _you_! I was a kid. I was a _kid_! You were my mom, you were supposed to help me! He beat me, and I think he did—he—" She paused, unable to finish the thought.

She shook her head sadly. "We're not a family." She raised her chin in defiance, undaunted by the tears that were streaking down Judy Fabray's face, as they had done that many years ago. "I have a family, with a mom, and a dad, and sisters and brothers. And a _girlfriend_ who loves me."

Her voice caught with her next words. "I'm messed up, Mommy, don't you get it? I'm messed up, and it's because of you and him. I'm broken, maybe I always have been, but I've found people to always love me. No matter what I do or who I am, they're always going to love me."

Quinn took a deep breath. "Get out, please. And don't come back."

"Quinn—"

"Get out!"

"I think Quinn has asked you to leave."

Quinn sank into Rachel, who had suddenly appeared at her side and slipped an arm around Quinn's waist, holding her close. Judy Fabray stared at them both, opening and closing her mouth like a fish, before it finally snapped shut and she regarded the three girls who now flanked her daughter. Quinn glanced at them gratefully.

Brittany, with a determined look. Santana, like a snake ready to strike any second. And Rachel, an expression on her face that Quinn hoped to never see directed at her.

All of them, part of her family.

Judy Fabray took a deep breath, then regarded Rachel. "She'll be taken care of?" she asked, sounding defeated.

"She'll be f—"

"She asked me, Santana."

Though it was said pleasantly, with a little half-smile, Quinn knew this wouldn't be the first time Rachel and Santana would butt heads about her care. It both worried her, and thrilled her. Santana fell silent, and Rachel squeezed Quinn's waist with her hand.

"Your daughter," Rachel said carefully, "Is a beautiful, loving, sweet, amazing individual. And I would say it's no thanks to you and that… man you call a husband, but the truth is, Quinn is who she is because and in spite of what's been done to her. Let me just say that she is loved, she will always be loved, and her family will always be there to care for her."

"Yeah," Santana said through clenched teeth, and Quinn almost laughed at how comical it sounded. "Now get out."

Mrs. Fabray looked at the three girls in turn again, before swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, and hurrying out the door.

Quinn sagged, and Santana rushed to her. "I got you, baby sis." Rachel stepped back, chewing on her lower lip.

Quinn smiled a little, and then shook her head. "San, thanks, but I need…" She glanced at Rachel.

The flicker of hurt was unmistakable on Santana's face, but she nodded. "Yeah, I get it." She offered a small smile, and then went off into her bedroom with Brittany.

Rachel's arms quickly went around Quinn, and she steered them both to the couch, sitting down and pulling Quinn close to her.

"I hurt her," Quinn whispered, tucking her head underneath Rachel's chin.

"Who, Mrs. Fabray? She'll get over it, I don't think your anger is misplaced."

"No, Santana."

"Oh." Rachel was quiet for a minute. "I can try to be less abrasive?"

Quinn shook her head. "It isn't that," she said. "Maybe she feels like you're trying to take her place, but I feel as if… her place is different now, if that makes sense."

"It does." Rachel stroked Quinn's hair and kissed her cheek. "Are you all right?"

Quinn shrugged. "I was happy, then sad, and now… kind of happy again, because you're holding me. I'm not sure how to feel, what's okay to feel."

"Whatever you're feeling is okay. Unless you're feeling that musicals are unnecessary, then we might have to talk."

Quinn laughed, a full, rich laugh, and squeezed Rachel tighter. "Did you mean what you said?"

"What did I say?"

"Now you're being vague on purpose," Quinn snorted, tickling Rachel and laughing again when the woman batted her hands away. Her voice softened and she looked away, feeling shy. "You said that I'm amazing. Loving. That I'm… beautiful."

"Oh that." Rachel waved her hand in dismissal. "I meant every word."

Quinn toyed with Rachel's hand, linking their fingers together as she had that day at the hospital. "Even when I'm not beautiful?" She couldn't meet Rachel's eyes, afraid of the answer she'd find there.

"Hey." Rachel tipped up her chin, forcing Quinn to look at her. "I love you. I love you if you're Beth, Lucy, Puck, or whoever else is in there. I love you when you're happy, when you're sad, when you're angry at me. No matter what. It's all you, Quinn, and you're beautiful."

Quinn smiled, feeling the blush spread over her cheeks, and she leaned in to kiss Rachel. "It's going to be rough," she admitted. "I'm not always going to be nice and sweet. But I-I promise… I'll work so hard to never hurt you again. I promise, Rachel."

Rachel returned the kiss, softly. "I know," she whispered against Quinn's lips. "I love you, Quinn Lopez."

"I love you too, Rachel Berry."

Quinn grinned, feeling once again warm and happy, just as yet another knock sounded on the door.

"Dude, that had better be the pizza guy," Santana said, coming into the living room with Brittany and leaning down to kiss the top of Quinn's head before moving toward the door. "Fifty minutes or it's free, I'm serious. Bad enough I had to order two, thanks to Miss I'm Vegan over here. Quinn, stop laughing at me!"


	14. Epilogue

_A'N: Thank you to everyone for reading :)_

* * *

_Two years later_

She loved it when it rained.

Especially when it rained so hard that you couldn't see out your windows except for when the world was illuminated with flashes of light, when the stream of light music notes streamed onto the roof accompanied by the percussion of thunder. This was nap weather, tea weather, curl up on the bed with a loved one weather.

When she was younger growing up in Cincinnati she had loved to sit out on her back porch and watch the thunderstorms, at least until her dads made her come back inside. And even then she'd run to the windows and watch, marveling at the anger of nature occurring just beyond her doorstep. She had once decided that she was going to be a storm chaser. Then her daddies had staged an intervention, complete with videos, and that was the end of that.

She was still getting used to the sounds of the rain in their new apartment, in the way that it rolled off the glass in the bedroom in tiny rivers, broadening and racing together until it met at the bottom. The thunder sounded three times as magnified here, as if in their apartment on the third floor, they had somehow moved next door to God. It now sounded less like lyrical music notes and more like the harsh marching of an army off to war; Rachel imagined each individual droplet as a soldier in grey, stepping in cadence with his brothers until the battle was over and won.

She was still prone to a bit of silliness, she thought, smiling to herself. Only a squeak at her side brought Rachel out of her reverie, and she reached out until her hand gently touched softness, and she stroked, lightly.

She and Quinn had acquired their apartment only six months ago, a decision that Santana had vehemently objected to. Rachel knew Santana's fears; despite the fact that Rachel had proven herself to Santana over and over in the last two years, Quinn was still her sister, and the protectiveness would always be there. Rachel knew it, respected it, but was also sure to remind Santana that things were different now. Quinn could make her own decisions, and while Santana's input was always welcome, Rachel said, it would be Quinn's input that would matter the most, to both of them.

Still, she knew that just across town, Santana would be worried.

"I should call them."

"They're fine," Brittany said, settling onto the couch with a huge bowl of popcorn.

"I know, but what if she needs me?"

"If she needs you, she'll call."

"And if she—" Santana was effectively silenced by popcorn tossed unceremoniously into her mouth.

"Rachel's got this, San."

Santana took a deep breath. "Yeah," she said, grinning. "Rachel's got this."

There had been a few times when Rachel wasn't sure that she really did have it. Especially when a new personality had surfaced, one called Jesse, an arrogant teenage boy who constantly criticized Rachel on her singing while conversely trying to engage her in duets. Twice she'd called up Santana and made the girl come over so Rachel could escape and breathe for a little while.

Rachel had craved neatness in her younger days, but now their apartment could be classified as an organized mess, with her music sheets and Quinn's schoolbooks, as well as coloring books and books on pregnancy. An odd library, Rachel knew, and one that no one else but a few would understand, but it was okay. It was her life now, and she didn't mind.

Puck was the only other personality that had been the most difficult to deal with, but as with all things, Rachel had persevered. Her first time with Quinn was slow, sweet, slow, magical… and slow. Quinn had been nervous, Rachel had been terrified. But they took their time, Rachel with words of reassurance and Quinn with all the trust she could place in the five foot two singer who pledged love to her with every kiss, every touch in places that made Quinn gasp and press against her. Puck had behaved, and afterward, as she was holding Quinn's naked, sweat-slicked body trembling against her own, Rachel had smiled and nuzzled her face into Quinn's neck.

"I love you," was all she could say. They'd climbed one of the last hurdles, one of Rachel's last "Can I really do this" obstacles, and glancing down at Quinn's fingers entwined with hers, Rachel had known it for sure.

She had this.

Quinn had reduced her schoolwork down to part-time, and was now working at the bookstore on campus. To her surprise, Rachel had been the one that had objected to this, while Santana had thought it was an amazing idea. Quinn had insisted on it, and it was only after she'd agreed to Rachel coming by every day at precisely 12:30 to check on her that Rachel had (reluctantly) conceded that maybe Quinn branching out would be a good idea. So far, Lucy had been the only one to make an appearance at the bookstore, and that personality was near enough to Quinn's to only be a little awkward. The bookstore manager had been informed, and was sympathetic, enough so that any time Quinn felt panicked, she could take a 30-minute break to compose herself and come back.

Rachel, for her part, had switched schools. She wasn't getting anywhere at the university, she realized, and moved to one of the music academies across the way. It made it more difficult to keep an eye on Quinn, but Santana was only a drive away, Brittany even closer, and together the three of them made a close-knit chain of contact so that Quinn would never be left without someone a phone call away.

Rachel's plan was to go to Broadway, a plan that both exhilarated her and scared her half to death. But every time Quinn would poke her and say "Sing, baby, sing," Rachel knew it was what she was born to do.

And every time she'd come home from an audition, a rejection, when Quinn would take Rachel in her arms and hold her close, whispering hope and determination to her, Rachel knew she had also been born to love.

The squeak was louder this time as there was a particularly loud crack of thunder, and Rachel's hand was even firmer in the golden blonde hair. "Sshh," she soothed. "You're all right, I'm here. You're okay."

She turned on her side and smiled down at Quinn, who was lying next to her with her thumb in her mouth on the bed, hazy eyes staring up at her.

"What do you need, Beth?" Rachel asked gently, carefully removing Quinn's thumb.

Beth-as-Quinn considered this, her head tilted and her tongue out against her lips in a way that was adorable, endearing.

"Tell me a story."

Rachel smiled. Beth always wanted stories. She paused, thinking. "Okay. Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away called New York, there lived a princess named Quinn."

Beth pouted a little, and Rachel laughed, still stroking her hair. "You know how this goes," she teased, then went on.

"And in that kingdom, there also lived a peasant girl called Rachel."

"_Ray,_" Quinn said stubbornly.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yes, Ray."

Quinn-as-Beth shifted so that she was lying on her back staring at the ceiling, Colley bear clutched in one arm as her other hand reached for Rachel's.

Rachel took it, and squeezed gently.

"And Ray loves Quinn very much?" Beth asked, shivering as the thunder rolled again.

Rachel smiled again and nodded, her thumb running lightly over Quinn's knuckles.

"And Ray loves Quinn, very, very much."


End file.
